Terra Firma
by Orange Sodie
Summary: The search for a missing agent intensifies.
1. Default Chapter

**Title**: Terra Firma  
**Author**: Carolina  
**Disclaimer**: They're not mine... yet. cue thunder sound  
**Rating**: R for language and violent situations.  
**Category**: XRA, D/R UST, DSF….. CBS, SNL, UPS, (alright, minus those 3 last ones ;)  
**Archive**: Sure, just let me know where before you do.   
**Author's notes**: Well, this is the result of sitting in traffic... in Los Angeles... in the middle of the heat... you day dream... and because you don't have a life... you write fanfic. By the way, everything in this story is made up, all the cases and the mumbo jumbo. I'm lazy. I don't do research. You have been warned. This is my first x-files fanfic, so please be gentle.  
**Spoilers**: Hm, right after William, before Release.  
**Feedback**: sure. E-mail me at super_carolina1@yahoo.com  
**Summary**: "Maybe he should have gone home. Maybe if he would have tried to divert the course of time, things would have ended differently."

Enjoy.

-TERRA FIRMA-

It all started the day his alarm never went off. A fluke, maybe. A mistake even, but it escalated into a series of ridiculously unlucky events that made him want to put his fist through a wall. His truck wouldn't start, the security guard made him go through the metal detector five times, the vending machine wouldn't take his wrinkled money, and a hot cup of coffee spilled on his desk, traveled down the oak wood surface, and burned his lap before he had a chance to move out of the way.

"Son of a…!"

He hissed at no one, standing up in time to save the files on his desk. The burn wasn't as bad as he had expected it to be, but infuriated, he looked up to observe his partners' reactions. 

Unnoticed. 

A lot of normally eyebrow-raising events had gone unnoticed nowadays. Unlike the usual chaos, alien chasing, and conspiracy uncovering cases running amok the bureau, things had been unusually calmed. Well, replace "unusually" with "awkwardly", and "calmed" with "depressing". Agent Scully had decided not long ago to give her baby up for adoption, and understandably so, her spirits had been anything but up. It was a decision she seemed to have made in a second, but the consequences had washed the entire bureau with a wave of melancholy. She had kept quiet, withdrawn. Folks around were not the most sensitive people, so everyone opted for staying quiet, instead of bringing something up that might make it worse, make her even more depressed. In a way, he could understand her pain. It wasn't long ago when he himself had lost his son. True, William was alive, and perfectly within the reach of Scully's grasp. But he knew what it was like to lose a part of you, that essence that makes you who you are. He missed parenthood, coming home after a long day to be received with shrieks of "Daddy!" and bombardments of hugs and kisses. Scully would probably never know how that feels. He probably would never even know himself. 

Shaking his head to try and get rid of this frustration, he sat back down on his chair, pants still wet from the coffee. 

No one noticed that either. 

He ran a rag over the desk, and tried to get back to work. Impossible. For the last hour he had been trying to read the file on his hands. But as soon as he got to the second word, the first one disappeared from his memory and he would have to start from scratch. Maybe he should have gone home. Maybe if he would have tried to divert the course of time, things would have ended differently. But that was not John Doggett. Unlike his partner's coo quack idealisms, he didn't believe in destiny, or fate, or any of that garbage. No use in trying to change things, just get up, go to work, do your best to have a nice day, and go to bed. Unfortunately, today hadn't been a good day, at all. If there was such a thing as luck, which he didn't believe, then he must have woken up on the wrong side of the bed and stepped knee deep in horse crap. 

Trying to play discreet, he looked up to throw a glance at Scully. She kept staring ahead, concentrating on a picture of baby William on the desk in front of her. Why won't she go home? Why does she torture herself by staring at his picture? Why is this affecting everyone so badly? Of course, there's an exception to every rule, and he had found out a long time ago, nine years to be exact, that Monica was the exception to every single rule he had ever learned. 

He looked up towards her desk to find her trying to balance a pencil on the calendar that rested under her arms. The pencil fell down with every attempt, but still, she kept picking it up and trying to make it stand on its own. Pencil goes up, rocks and loses its balance because the eraser was round, and down it went again. He looked up at Monica's determined face and shook his head. That was Monica, tenacious, but in the most awkward sense. 

Finally, she let the pencil rest on the desk when Scully snapped out of her trance and stood up, reaching for her jacket. 

"I'm going home," she announced almost in an inaudible tone.

"Do you need anything?" Monica suddenly asked, and then looked reprimanded when she realized the stupidity of the question. 

But Scully smiled nonetheless, and simply shook her head. "No. But thank you." Reaching for her briefcase, she gave both agents an insincere smile before she wished them goodnight and walked out the door, almost somber. 

John watched as Monica let out a small sigh and sat on her chair again, trying to go back to work. Monica had devoted almost all her time to being there for Scully, try to distract her from thoughts of her son. They had gone shopping, on walks, on coffee breaks, on lunches... In a way, it made John feel like a third wheel, sometimes useless, but he understood that under the circumstances, maybe it was the right thing for Monica to do. Still, he knew how Scully felt, and he knew that at the moment, she probably wanted to be alone. Hell, she probably wanted to be alone all the time but didn't have the heart to tell Monica to scram. Looking back at those years after Luke's death, he was glad Monica had been as aggressive as she was being with Scully at the moment. If it wasn't for her constant smothering, he probably would have gone crazy the second his eyes rested on his dead son's body. He admired that part of her. If he was an open man, he would have been able to realize he loved that part of her.

Yet at the same time, she made him incredibly mad. Sometimes when he was hurting, all he wanted to do was walk, leave, be alone. But whenever he turned around, there was Monica, asking if he was okay. She could be a little bit of a bundle sometimes, especially for a man who detests confronting his emotions. He liked things to be traditional, and she always debunked his thoughts with her New Age crap. She reminded him of that song, "I've got a new age girl..." 

But even within the conventionalisms of her own beliefs, she didn't fit very well. But. That was the best word to describe Monica. She believes, but keeps herself at bay. She is open minded, yet stubborn when she wants to be. She's passive, but has a hidden air of aggressiveness. Don't eat meat, but she sure like the bone.

"Should we go and keep her company?" Monica asked all of a sudden, interrupting John's train of thought.

John shook his head. "Leave her alone, Monica, will 'ya?" he answered as he returned his attention to that file, still stuck on that first sentence. Monica didn't say anything else, and once in a while he'd find her with his peripheral vision to see what she was doing. She sat there motionless, staring straight ahead at a fixed spot on a wall. 

He knew she was thinking of William. She was thinking of Luke as well. 

"You're not a therapist," he said, almost scolding. 

"I know that, John," she said simply, and stood up, grabbing her jacket with her.

"So stop playing one."

John looked up as he said that, suddenly aware about the fact that his statement had been a little harsh. But before he could apologize, she announced she was going home as well. 

"It's pouring outside. Did you bring an umbrella?" she asked as she reached for her own.

Typical Monica. Even when she's being ripped apart, she still thinks of the other person fist. 

"Yeah," he mumbled. 

Monica nodded a couple of times, expecting him to say something else. He didn't. "Okay. Good night."

"G'night," John said, and when she turned her back, he watched her go, and shook his head again.

Finally, some peace and quiet. Maybe now he could concentrate on this frickin' file. 

But before he had a chance to start all over again, guilt tore at his insides. He was about to stand up and follow her, apologize for being such a prick, but she was probably gone now. So he decided to wait, maybe call her in the morning, or say he was sorry when they both met at work again. Hell, Monica's strong, she'd get over it. For now, he had to at least make a report of this file.

64 year old woman, attacked by a giant half man, half cat.

"Oh, crap."

~*~

Drum, drum, drum. 

Monica's fingers tapped rhythmically on the steering wheel to an imaginary tune in her head. Looking around her neighborhood, she made sure there were no cars behind her before she paralleled parked in a spot a little too far away from her building for her liking. After she turned off the engine, she sat there for a moment, closing her eyes and mentally making her muscles relax, a ritual she performed every night. John thought it was crazy, of course, as he thought many, if not all, of her rituals were. 'How is sittin' on a car goin' to make you relax, Monica? A woman shouldn' sit in the dark inside her car alone, Monica. One of these days you're gonna get carjacked, Monica.' She smiled to herself, though, remembering that time when she found him trying to relax using her technique as well. 

Yet almost immediately, she frowned, remembering the increasing amount of stress John had been under lately. With William gone, he had been one of those who had decided to keep his distance from Scully. She knew he must be hurting, probably thinking about Luke, about now matter how much danger his son was in, he would never let him go. He had really never let him go in 9 years. Truth was she hadn't let go either. Luke's death affected her in ways she never knew possible. And like John, she had also been waiting for that day when they could both breathe again, learn to forgive themselves and move on. 

After around two minutes, she finally took a deep breath and opened her eyes. It had finally stopped raining, and in its place there was a light fog embracing the air. Reaching for her purse, she made sure her gun was accessible and checked her rear view mirror before opening the door. The cold air of the crisp night sent chills down her spine and made her skin break out in goose bumps. Rubbing her arms quickly, she threw the door close and turned to head home. 

Suddenly her body jumped, and a cold breath of air escaped her lungs in a loud gasp. The figure in front of her, face covered, raised his fist in the air and swung at her face. Her body twisted back, and the last thing she felt was a strong bolt as her head hit her own car. Keys first, then her purse, and her body followed to the ground, not for long, before the man picked her up and threw her over his shoulder, disappearing out of the scene as mysteriously as he had appeared.

~*~ 

Hours later, the sun half out, John's phone began to ring and he moaned on his bed, opening his eye briefly to look at the clock. Too damn early. 

But he let out a sigh and rolled on his side, picking it up from the receiver.

"Hello?"

"John?"

He sat on the edge of the bed, trying to wake himself up. "Agent Scully? D'you know what time it is?"

"John..."

She let out a sigh of... he didn't know. Frustration? Tension? Anger? Fear?

"What's wrong?" he asked, thinking something might have happened to William, but then remembered William was gone and so he just sat, scratching the back of his head. 

"You better get down here," she said. 

"Down where?"

He could tell she didn't want to say anything over the phone. But whatever this was, it didn't sound like a case. It sounded personal. 

"Are you alright, Dana?" he asked again, getting a little irritated at her game. If it wasn't William, was it Mulder?

"John, I don't want you to get upset," she drew in a deep breath and continued. "It's about Monica."

He'd never really know how, but he blinked, and when he opened his eyes, he was at the bureau. Scully and Skinner were waiting for him and he approached them hurriedly, confusion distorting the features of his face.

"Where is she?" he asked as if he was out of breath, looking from Scully to Skinner. 

"We don't know," Skinner said. 

"You don't know?" John asked sharply. 

"John, let's not jump to conclusions, we still don't know what happened," Scully said, trying to make the situation less stressing than it already was, but failing miserably. 

"We already have a crew at the scene, and--"

"Wait," John raised his hands in the air, interrupting Skinner. "Can you please tell me what's goin' on? Without all this bullshit?"

Scully drew in a breath. "There was a call from a man in Monica's neighborhood. He said there was a car parked outside, with blood on the side window. He also found a purse on the ground. The wallet is still inside with the ID, John. It's Monica's purse."

"That doesn' mean it's Monica's blood," John said, adamant. 

Scully nodded, looking from Skinner to John. 

"It **is** her blood," John exhaled. 

"We already have the best team out there working on this case," Skinner repeated, giving John's upper hand a pat. "We're gonna find her, don't worry."

"Don't worry?" John asked. "You call me at 5 in the mornin' telling me someone smashed Monica's head against her car and she's nowhere to be found. But you don't want me to worry?"

"John--" Scully began again, but before she could inject some reason into him, he let out a small, irritated grunt, turned around and headed outside. She gave Skinner an exasperated look, and followed John. 

Minutes later, they arrived at Monica's apartment building. John stepped out of the car and approached the crew that surrounded Monica's car. There was a 'do not cross' tape around it, and the evidence team was trying to find finger prints, taking pictures of the surroundings, running a fluorescent light all around and inside Monica's car. A small crowd was gathering, and people walking by would stop and ask what was happening. 'What happened? What's going on? Did they kill someone? Is there a body inside the car?'

John ignored the whispers and continued to walk. He wasn't really sure what he was doing there. Maybe he just needed to see this for himself. He needed to make sure that Skinner and Scully weren't yanking his chain. He had to know if this was real, or some sick, twisted nightmare. The more he tried to wake up, snap himself back to lucidity, the more he got lost in this torturing dream.

He stopped on his tracks suddenly when none other then Brad Follmer turned around and saw him standing there. John resumed his walking, until he was finally face to face with the AD.

"Agent," Brad said formally, as if this was just another case, just another woman, just another situation. 

It occurred to John that he really didn't know what to say. There were so many questions whirling in his mind, that they left his head empty, painful, hollow. A quick glance towards Monica's car, and the nightmare was over. It wasn't a dream. It was suddenly too real. 

"Don't worry, I'm taking care of this," Brad added. 

John ran his hand through his hair, staring at one of the men scraping a small portion of the dried blood on the side window of her car. Why the hell does everyone keep telling him not to worry? Were they aware that this was Monica Reyes? One of their own? His partner? Did they know she had been taken by some man? Did they know that the more time passed, the less of a chance they had of finding her? Did they know that this man, whoever he was, did not mean well? How could he? What kind of a man hits a woman and takes her away? Not an honorable man, that was for sure. Not a man who would treat her well, feed her, keep her warm, safe. No. Probably the exact opposite. Probably nothing good, nothing honorable. Probably...

A powerful surge of energy sprinted from his toes to his head at the thought. It still left him confused, completely dumbfounded, and afraid, for Monica's life and for his own sanity. He hadn't noticed Scully was standing next to him, already into agent mode. 

"Do you have any leads? Any witnesses?" she asked

"No, no one seemed to be around when it happened," Brad said, fixing his stare on Scully to avoid John's probing eyes. 

"What about this man who called? Did you track him down?" John finally asked, fixing his composure.

"It was an anonymous call," Brad said. 

"You can still track it, right? Maybe this guy knows something--"

"We have it all under control, Agent Doggett," Brad interrupted him. 

"You do? Then where is she? You don't have any leads, you don't have any suspects, no witnesses," John said cynically. "Yeah, looks like you have it under control, alright."

"John," Scully repeated for the hundredth time that day, but again, in vain. 

Brad ignored her as well, concentrating on Doggett, who kept daring him with his eyes, challenging Brad. All of a sudden John looked towards the scene, and his body moved forward, until Brad stopped him with his hands. 

"John, let me handle this," Brad whispered, his face inches away from John's.

"I want in on this," John said.

"Agent Doggett, this is **my** case," Follmer said. 

"This is **my** partner!" John snapped suddenly, his face turning into a cold and hard mask of anger.

"Which is why I'm going to ask you to stay away from this investigation," Brad said in a strong but controlled voice. He watched John's eyes intensely, blue but burning like fire. All of a sudden the man pushed Brad away, and walked towards the scene of the crime.

Brad looked at Scully, who gave him a defeating look. Both knew that no matter how much they tried to keep John away from the case, he'd find a way to let himself in. So they allowed him to linger. Brad knew that most likely, John would find nothing. He hadn't found anything himself. God knows they had combed that area at least five times, and the only prints they had been able to find were Monica's. Without turning back to the scene, he began to walk to Monica's building again.

John approached Monica's car in sprints, trying to make sense of the scene thrown in a sea of cops, agents, and onlookers that surrounded the area. He knew the exaggerated amount of help was Skinner's doing and for once, he was grateful for that. 

But once there, he found himself lost. The car looked fine. Her umbrella rested on the passenger's seat, untouched; the umbrella she had offered him. He couldn't see her purse anywhere and he figured it had been taken away as evidence. Other than that, there were no clues, except for the spot of dried blood on the side window. He watched as Scully joined the crew and he could overhear them talking. No profile, no suspects, no witnesses. Whoever Monica's kidnaper was, he or she didn't seem to want her purse, her money, or her car. So what the hell did he want?

He knew he must have been working to answer that question. He knew he must have been talking to the crew, looking for prints, doing something. But somehow his body refused to move. He had lived this scene a long time ago. A time when a little boy was taken from his home while his mother sat on the porch and his father was at work. He had been witness of this scene once upon a time, when his sanity had somehow disappeared and left him in the middle of nowhere with nothing but his torturing thoughts and an overwhelming fear. He was reliving that again, only this time the person who had kept him sane back then, was the same person riding behind this question.

Weary eyes watched as Scully put on some gloves and began to work the scene with the other agents. Time passed. He wasn't sure how long. He wasn't sure his watch was even counting the seconds of this nightmare. He just stood there, hands resting on his waist, questions chasing each other in his mind, eyes fixed on that blood stained window. People still gathered behind the 'do not cross' line. It seemed like when one person walked away, two joined the crow. He could hear them behind him talking, moving, trying to take a peek. None one had the brilliant idea to send them off, so they stood there, adding more fuel to his fire. 

'I heard a woman was raped.'

'I heard someone was murdered.'

'No, a woman was kidnapped.'

'Do you know her? She just moved into our building.'

'Wow, she was so young.'

'What a waste.'

'What is wrong with this country?'

"Lose something?"

John's face turned into a frown, echoing the question in his mind. It had somehow been louder than the rest of the whispers, a very low tone. He turned around only to see mostly women standing there, looking at him. His eyes searched the area, looking for... he didn't know.

"John," Scully interrupted his search and he watched her, still with a frowned face. "They're trying to build a profile. Since they used force to take her, it's probably male."

The words ran through his mind, un-scanned. Once more, he looked around, eyes flinching at a black trench coat walking away from the scene.

"What is it?" Scully asked, trying to find with her eyes what he was watching. 

"Nothing," John mumbled, suddenly walking away from the scene. 

"Where are you going?" Scully followed. 

"I'm goin' to find her."

To be continued…


	2. Terra Firma, Part 2

Title: Terra Firma, Part 2   
Author: Carolina   
Rating: R   
Category: D/R UST, DSF   
Author's notes: Where am I going with this, you ask? Well, I've heard a lot of people complaining that Doggett and Reyes didn't really have any personal involvement with the X-Files. So this is my way of getting them personally involved. This is my little idea of how season 9 would have ended, and gone into season 10 (if we would have had one.) Hope that makes sense, and I hope you like this part too. I also forgot to thank Alley for checking out my first part (thanks Alley!) and there's a DMB line in here somewhere, find it and win the magical prize. 

  
-TERRA FIRMA 2- 

  
  
"The victim's name is Monica Julietta Reyes, she is a special agent for the X-Files division here at the bureau," Assistant Director Follmer announced as he paced in front of a big amount of agents that sat in a small classroom.   
  
From the moment he got that call and learned of Monica's case, he had tried his best to remain nonchalant, treating this case as if he didn't know the victim. But every minute that passed by, he felt more helpless, suffocated. The pressure he felt on his shoulders only increased when his eyes diverted slightly to his left.   
  
John Doggett stood at the door, arms crossed, ignoring the constant interruptions Dana Scully kept on throwing at him. For hours she had been trying to bring him down to earth, repeating her little facts about kidnappers, their victims, and the shining record the bureau had of solving these cases in the blink of an eye. He hadn't been receptive to any of that. And at the same time, she just kept trying.   
  
"It was nice of the bureau to assign so many people on the case," Scully whispered discreetly.   
  
"Bunch of rookies," John spat.   
  
"It's better than nothing," Scully replied, watching John give her his usual 'I don't need your bullshit' look.   
  
"…from here, the victim drove to a small convenient store where she proceeded to buy a pack of cigarettes around 20:00 last night, she hasn't been seen since."   
  
Skinner rose from the chair he sat and joined Follmer. "In front of you, you all have a package with all the essentials, name, height, weight, pictures, blood type, etc. You will take that with you, everywhere you go. And I want you to keep your eyes open, for anything. Questions?"   
  
A young agent raised his arm and proceeded to stand up. "Any witnesses?"   
  
"No, not yet," Follmer replied. He took a deep breath and continued. "We received a call this morning from an anonymous man who found Agent Reyes' purse next to her car. Other than that, we have no leads."   
  
"Is this a rape case?" another agent asked.   
  
"Could be," Follmer said, watching with the corner of his eye how John shifted his weight significantly. "But, it seems too well planned for it to be a rape case."   
  
"There is a specific reason why Agent Reyes was kidnapped," Skinner added. "We find the reason, we find the perpetrator."   
  
One agent chuckled slightly, "How do we find the reason if we don't haven have any leads."   
  
"This is the FBI, agents. We're here to use our heads and do whatever we can to solve these kinds of cases. Especially when it's one of our own," Follmer replied.   
  
One of our own.   
  
"Well… how are we gonna do that?"   
  
An acrid void increased inside John's stomach and the only way to subdue it was to walk away from the scene.   
  
Scully followed him with her eyes wearily, and once again, she walked after him. She didn't know just how long she could play this game, him walking away, and her following. Her patience, much like his, was starting to wear off.   
  
"John," she called, but that didn't stop him.   
  
"Agent Doggett!" she said sternly. That made him stop on his tracks, but he didn't even turn around. "What are you doing?"   
  
She took a couple of steps forward to get closer when he didn't even move. "Look, I'm just as worried about Monica as you are. But you have to stop doing this to yourself, to me, and to the bureau. They're doing the best they can to find her."   
  
He finally turned around. "The best they can? One of their best agents is missing, **my** partner, and what are they doin' to find her?"   
  
"They have a good amount of agents--"   
  
"They have a good amount of kids!" he yelled. He looked around, placing his hands on his hips, and lowered his voice to continue. "The closest those boys have ever been to a case is dressin' up as cops for Halloween. And those are the people in charge of finding Monica, Dana. Now maybe you think that's very honorable of the bureau to assign so many people on the case. But do you really think those high school kids are gonna help us?"   
  
Scully stared up at his eyes, let out a sigh, and looked around.   
  
An answer in the form of silence.   
  
"Didn't think so."   
  
This time, she didn't even try to pour some sense into him, and for once, he was glad for that. He walked out on her once again.   
  
And once again, he found himself at Monica's apartment. The place had been combed so many times, that it seemed as if a hurricane had gone through it. Every little corner had been investigated to death and as suspected- they found nothing.   
  
He really didn't know why he stood there, but at the moment, it seemed to bring some sort of comfort. Being amongst Monica's things felt as if she was still around. And it was not just her things, but the fact that as he stood there, life seemed to be on pause. The ingredients of what would have been her dinner that night still sat on the kitchen counter. A couple of rented movies we thrown over the couch and even her bathroom was ready for what he knew was her usual Friday night bath. If a stranger were to walk through the door, he would never guess the tumult John found himself in, increasing when he found a note pinned to the refrigerator reading, "Bread, eggs, tea, and milk." Proof of a life that would have continued if it not were for this simple twist of fate.   
  
He himself had walked around the apartment so many times that he could close his eyes and locate every item even among the mess. Standing there earlier that same day, watching as strange men went through her things, her private documents, even her underwear- made his blood rush through his head in anger.   
  
The truth was that as irritated as he was about this lack of good agents working on the case, or any leads for that matter, he himself didn't know what to do. If it wasn't for Scully constantly bringing him out of his thoughts, he would still be standing at the scene of the crime. He knew he had been a good cop. And he knew he was a good agent. Then how come his mind refused to help him find her? How come his body was constantly at the verge of falling on its knees?   
  
He had only felt this kind of frustration when he had those kinds of nightmares. It was always the same one. Maybe it wasn't really a nightmare but more of a bad dream. He found himself in a classroom, back in college, holding a pencil in his hand. The professor suddenly began to pass out tests, but he hadn't been to class all semester. He was sure he'd fail. He knew he was going to fail. But the test sat in front of him, and there was nothing he could do but stare at it, chew on the pencil, feel as the desperation inside of him grew so much that he woke up sweating.   
  
That was the same way he felt at the moment. Monica was gone. He was a special agent who had worked on missing person's cases hundreds of times. He had lived through one himself, the disappearance of his own son. Back then, he couldn't get to him on time. This time, he could feel the wheels turning towards the same direction. He had been a good cop, was a good agent. But he had failed his own son, and now he was failing Monica.   
  
He couldn't allow this to happen again. He had barely survived back then, but he was sure a second time would annihilate him.   
  
Completely.   
  
And when he walked out of her building, the feeling was so powerful that his breathing became ragged, and his head began to pound. He crossed the street to his car and looked around one more time in case there was something they had missed the first time.   
  
Nothing. But then, his eyes stumbled upon the small park in front of Monica's building.   
  
A black trench coat.   
  
Tumbling in the wind.   
  
Lose something?   
  
The same trench coat sat not too far from his car, with a small table in front of him, a couple of people laughing at some tricks he did with his cards.   
  
John threw the door shut and walked over. As he did, the crowd walked away. He stood in front of the man, only the man wouldn't even look at him, but kept shuffling his cards.   
  
Suddenly he threw a glance up at John and smiled. "Agent Doggett," he said as a greeting.   
  
"Do I know you?" John asked but the man didn't reply. "How'd'you know my name?"   
  
The man chuckled. "You're wearing a name tag."   
  
John looked at the small FBI tag on his trench coat and removed it. "I saw you this morning at the scene of the crime."   
  
"I live around, that's all," the man said.   
  
"What do you know about Monica?"   
  
"Who?" he asked.   
  
"If you know something-"   
  
"I don't know anything, Agent Doggett. This morning, you just looked like you lost something, that's all," the man said and then extended his arm. "Michael Bonsall."   
  
John shook his hand hesitantly and reached inside his coat pocket to take out a picture of Monica. "I lost my partner, she was taken away from," he cleared his throat to allow his voice to continue. "She was taken away."   
  
Bonsall stopped playing with his cards too look briefly at the picture. Then he stood up and folded the small table under his arms. "Hope you find her."   
  
John narrowed his eyes as he watched the man walked away. He didn't go into Monica's building, but the one next to it.   
  
Before his thoughts could go any further, his cell phone began to ring. As if it was a gun and he was in danger, he quickly reached for it, hoping to hear Monica on the other side, telling him it had all been a joke. Ha ha, gotcha! Now you go hide and I find you.   
  
"John."   
  
Scully.   
  
"Yeah?" he replied as he began to walk towards his car.   
  
"Where are you?"   
  
John let out a sigh, not wanting to let her know of his whereabouts. When he didn't reply, she continued.   
  
"Look, we could really use your help down here."   
  
"Why, did they find something?"   
  
"No," Scully replied. "But you knew-" she stopped to think of her choice of words and continued. "You know Monica the best-"   
  
"I thought Follmer wanted me out of this investigation," John replied as he got in his car.   
  
"We still need you help, John."   
  
He let out a sigh of annoyance. Hanging up his phone and heading towards the bureau. When he got there, he found himself being interrogated on.   
  
Had Monica been investigating a case on her own?   
  
"We're partners."   
  
Yes or no, Agent Doggett.   
  
"Not that I know 'bout."   
  
Does she have any enemies?   
  
"For Christ's sake, this is Monica we're talkin' 'bout."   
  
Yes or no.   
  
"No!"   
  
Scully sat next to him, trying to answer the same questions John had been asked. This whole time Monica had been with them, she had barely had time to get to know her better. That only made her feel more guilty. She had been so wrapped up in her emotional rollercoaster that she had failed to notice people around her.   
  
She wished Mulder was here. She wished he could solve this case just as he had solved the many he had before. She wished that as much as this was John's personal journey, it could be her own as well.   
  
She wished she could just go out there and bring Monica back to John. Or maybe she just wished they could all wake up.   
  
By the time the questions had finished, she found himself with maybe a bigger headache than John's. And then all of a sudden Skinner walked in with a file on his hands, and everybody went quiet, staring at him, waiting for him to say something good, something positive.   
  
"We may have something."   
  
And then the world stopped.   
  
And it only continued to spin again when John stood up. "What?"   
  
"One of Agent Reyes' neighbors claimed she had seen a strange man walking around the building a couple of days before Monica disappeared," Skinner announced.   
  
"Who is he?" Scully asked.   
  
Skinner gave the file to Doggett, who immediately opened it and stared at the picture of a large man. He scanned through the papers, but then frowned at Skinner.   
  
"He doesn't have a record."   
  
"No, but it's the closest thing we have," Skinner replied.   
  
"So let's go get him," John added.   
  
Hours later, a group of agents, armed with guns and bullet proof jackets, arrived at a dirty old building in Virginia. As much as Skinner had reminded Doggett to let him be in charge, the warning seemed to have thrown at the window as John led the crowd and kicked the door a couple of times.   
  
"Simon Brewer, this is the FBI, open the door!"   
  
Nothing.   
  
More warnings were followed by more silence, until John gave two agents a nod and they broke the door open.   
  
John walked in first; looking around, gun in hand, ready to fire. The main room was empty, except for the excess garbage that lay around the floor and furniture. There was a stale smell that could only be explained by the cartoon of sour milk resting on the kitchen counter.   
  
And then they all just stood there when everyone had checked every single room and they had found nothing. No signs of life. Not even evidence that Monica had been there.   
  
A couple of agents began to interrogate the neighbors and Skinner's patience began to wear thin. The neighbors claimed they hadn't heard anything coming from the apartment in weeks. The landlord was only mad that the man's rent was overdue. Some claimed the man was a loner, mysterious, and rarely talked to anyone. Some of the women said they felt sorry for him. In the end, no one could figure why the man was under investigation.   
  
John stood on the hallway of the building as he watched the sun slowly go down. Monica had been gone now for almost 24 hours and all they had was the name of a man who seemed to have vanished from the face of the earth.   
  
"Let's run a background on this guy, I don't want anyone to rest until we find him," John heard Skinner say as everyone began to leave the building. Scully approached him with half a smile and patted his upper arm.   
  
"Go get some sleep, okay?"   
  
John nodded, watching as she walked away. A couple of minutes later, he found himself driving home, only home didn't seem like a sensible place to go, and so he spent hours driving around, hoping to erase those terrible images that kept sneaking into in his mind.   
  
An innocent part of his mind fooled him into believing that he could find Monica that night, if he just kept looking around, driving, and asking strangers. He stopped by every police station he came across to spread more pictures of Monica, hoping at least someone else could find her, or at least know something.   
  
When his mind couldn't tell him what else to do, he found himself in an old bar somewhere in Maryland. The bartender poured him a shot of Vodka and John gulped it down without a thought. That was probably what he most needed at the moment.   
  
One drink to remember, another to forget.   
  
The bartender immediately tried to make conversation, serve as a listening ear, but quickly found John wasn't in the mood to share. And so he kept pouring drinks, one right after the other.   
  
John could only run the tip of his finger along the rim of the small glasses. The movement was slowly hypnotizing him, helping him forget. By the time the bartender turned around to pour another drink, he found John passed out, head pressed against the counter.   
  
And then it came back to him again. The dream. The same classroom. The same professor. The same pencil and the same desperation. A big clock in front of him counted the seconds he had left before the tests would be taken again. Seconds before he'd fail.   
  
4   
  
3   
  
2   
  
"Hey buddy."   
  
A moan, and someone pocking the sensitive flesh on his shoulder.   
  
"Hey man."   
  
John opened his eyes slightly and immediately felt the nagging headache that came after every night of heavy drinking.   
  
He groaned as he tried to raise his head and looked around. The bartender from the night before stood next to him, a small towel thrown across his shoulder and holding a broom.   
  
"We have to close the bar, buddy. I'm sorry."   
  
John straightened up despite the headache and the dizzy feeling fighting against his consciousness. "What time is it?"   
  
"Almost 6 am," the bartender said. "You've been sleeping there for an hour."   
  
John tried to stand up, but his knees were a little weak and he had to hold on to the stool for balance.   
  
"Whoa, you okay there?" the bartender asked as he held John's arm tight.   
  
"Yeah," John replied.   
  
"You can't drive in this condition, buddy. You have someone I can call?"   
  
John ran his hands through his hair, wishing this guy would stop calling him 'buddy'. Usually the person who came to fish him out of bars was Monica. And at that moment he remembered the reason why he had tried to flood his body with alcohol.   
  
"I'm okay," John said.   
  
"Yeah, I let you go out there like that and I get in trouble. Let me call you a cab, it's no trouble," the bartender said.   
  
"No, no," John interjected with a motion of his hand.   
  
The bartender shook his head and began to walk towards the other side of the bar. "Don't go anywhere."   
  
John stroked the side of his face and sat back on the stool. The headache increased heavily when there was a sudden ring. It continued over and over, and he was about to yell the bartender to pick it up until he realized it was his own cell phone.   
  
He had to reach inside a couple of pockets until he finally found it inside his coat. He cleared his throat a couple of times and then answered.   
  
"John Doggett."   
  
"John, it's AD Skinner."   
  
John immediately straightened up, as if the man could see his current state.   
  
"Yes sir."   
  
"Where are you?" Skinner asked.   
  
"Uh, I'm on my way to the bureau."   
  
"Good. We found something on this guy Brewer that might help us on the case."   
  
"What is it?" John asked.   
  
"Get in here first; I want you and Scully to hear this together."   
  
And then he hung up.   
  
John frowned in confusion as he put the cell phone inside his coat pocket. The bartender suddenly came back and handed him a foam cup.   
  
"Take it, it's some strong coffee. If you're gonna drive out of here you should at least be a little coherent," the bartender said.   
  
John took a sip and flinched. It was strong alright. He nodded gratefully at the bartender and tried to smile.   
  
"Now you be careful out there."   
  
"Thank you."   
  
John handed the man a couple of bills and made his way out of the bar. The sun was beginning to rise and as he sat on the driver's seat of his car, he rested his head against the steering wheel for a couple of minutes. Without moving the rest of his body, he turned on the engine and set the heater up. He had asked himself many times why he kept running to bars when he needed an escape. Sure, the alcohol would numb him up and help him forget everything. But the next day, he not only had the same worry, but a hangover to worry about as well.   
  
"John, one of these days you're gonna get alcohol poisoning."   
  
He remembered her words and voice clearly that Father's Day four years before when he was so drunk, she had to practically bathe him, change his clothes, and put him to sleep.   
  
It was a tradition he could call only theirs. And it was too bad it would only work one way. Monica never resorted to these kinds of measures when she found herself in an emotional uproar. She had her own ways, healthy ways, rarely any of them involving him, while any of his had her out of the picture.   
  
As he sat there, he made a promise that he would never do this to himself if he could just have her back.   
  
A couple of minutes later, when he was sure he could drive a couple of feet without ending at the bottom of a river, he was on his way to the bureau.   
  
A part of him was eager to hear what Skinner had to say. Another part of him wanted to run off. The odds were even, either bad news or good news. But he had never been one for good luck.   
  
When he got there, that look he knew he'd get from Scully was waiting for him at the main entrance.   
  
"You don't look so well," was the greeting he received. Not that she had expected him to go home and get a good night sleep. She wasn't really surprised to find him in that condition. In fact, she was expecting.   
  
"What's this all about?" he said to try and change the subject.   
  
"I don't know, Skinner wants us downstairs."   
  
Together, they walked down to the basement and found Skinner leaning against John's desk, alone, reading and rereading a file.   
  
"What's going on, sir?" Scully asked.   
  
"Did you find her?" John asked.   
  
"No, but I found something on this guy Brewer," Skinner said.   
  
"I thought he didn't have a record," Scully said.   
  
"He doesn't, but he has an interesting history," Skinner added. Scully walked over and leaned against Monica's desk; John stood where he was.   
  
"Simon Brewer is an alias; his real name is Boyd Chase. Only child, mother died when he was 3, father was an abusive alcoholic. He went from foster home to foster home until he was 18. And then for ten years he went from job to job until 1997."   
  
Scully gave John and look, and then gave the same questioning look to Skinner. "What happened in 1997?"   
  
"Nothing much, he quit his job and moved out of his apartment but there's no listed place of residence after that, until he moved into that place in Maryland four months ago. I thought he might have just been homeless during those years, but then I thought it was unusual for a man to quit his job and leave his home to go live on the streets."   
  
"How does that help us find Monica?" John asked impatiently.   
  
"Monica's neighbor said she saw this guy walking around their building. Now, what was he doing in Monica's building when he has that apartment in Maryland?" Skinner asked.   
  
"Maybe he works around, maybe he's the cable guy," John added.   
  
"Maybe, but I couldn't find anything about him after 1997, it's as if he just disappeared only to come back to life as Simon Brewer. And that's when I thought, maybe we just weren't looking in the right place," Skinner continued.   
  
John looked down and toed the floor hard in frustration. He was about to say something harsh, but then Skinner handed him a file.   
  
"What's this?" John asked. Scully moved closer so she could read the file as well, and then Skinner continued.   
  
"Simon, or Boyd, whatever he's called now, wasn't homeless during that time. His name is on that file. He seems to have joined a cult."   
  
"A cult?" John frowned. This was already going in the wrong direction. "What the hell does that have to do with the case?"   
  
Skinner looked at Scully. "Do you remember Mulder ever investigating this case?"   
  
Scully took the file from John and began to scan the only two pages on it. "Yeah, but there was never any evidence to even acknowledge the existence of the group. It was just a rumor, nothing substantial."   
  
"I want you two to find something substantial."   
  
"Us two?" Scully asked.   
  
"AD Follmer wanted us out of this investigation," John said.   
  
"Well, I want you in," Skinner said.   
  
John let out a sigh. "Why?"   
  
"Because this just became an X-File."   
  
  
To be continued…   



	3. Terra Firma, Part 3

Title: Terra Firma   
Author: Carolina   
Category: D/R UST, DSF   
Rating: Still PG-13   
Author's notes: All work and no play makes Carolina a dull girl. Thanks to Nicole for putting up with my ignorance.   
  
  
-TERRA FIRMA 3-   
  
  
When Skinner walked out of the office, he left both Doggett and Scully with their mouths hanging open, confused. Scully immediately began to search for anything she could on this so-called cult among Mulder's files for a few hours, but as she had suspected, there was no information. Knowing they didn't have much time, if this was indeed a cult case, she quickly walked out of the FBI headquarters with a plan forming in her mind and John in tow. He had been surprisingly quiet since Skinner told them about his theory. In fact, he hadn't said a single word, much to Scully's surprise.   
  
When they entered the garage, he immediately reached inside his pocket for the car keys, but before he could open the door, Scully stood in front of him, hand opened in mid air.   
  
"What?" he asked.   
  
"Give me the keys, I'll drive."   
  
"No," John said and tried to reach the door again.   
  
"John, you're still drunk," she said sharply. "Either give me the keys or you can stay here and I'll do this without you."   
  
He tried to give her that serious look, the one he always used when he tried to scare his way into what he wanted. But so did she. And this time, he lost the fight.   
  
So he shook his head and handed her the keys reluctantly. He walked over to the other side and got in the passenger's seat as she turned on the engine and drove out of the garage.   
  
"Where are we going?" John asked as he rested his elbow on the edge of his window to help him rub his temples.   
  
"Well first we're gonna get you some breakfast."   
  
"I'm not hungry," John replied.   
  
She ignored that. "And then we're gonna try to find something on this cult."   
  
Through the corner of her eye, she caught him shaking his head again, and she knew well that couldn't accept this cult theory. But it was the only lead they had, the only way to get to Monica, and she would help him pursue this venue even if he didn't believe in it.   
  
Some time later, they stopped at a nearby diner where they both ordered breakfast. Despite his earlier claim that he wasn't hungry, Scully watched as he ate an entire plate of eggs, pancakes, hash browns and four cups of coffee. She knew he was getting ready for something it would be hard to endure. She was going through the same process as well. When something bothered John, she was well aware that his best defense mechanism was to go through it by torturing himself as hard as he could, refusing to eat or get any sleep. As worried as she was about Monica, she was probably even more worried about John. Getting drunk and staying up all night would probably drive him insane, and she was scared she wouldn't be able to save him.   
  
She waited until he had finished and rested her cup of coffee on the table to look directly at him.   
  
"John, I know you want to protect Monica, I do too," she began, trying to be careful about her choice of words.   
  
"But if she was investigating a case on her own, I think it's important that you at least let me know."   
  
He stared at her with a frown, mouth partly open, trying to process the accusation while adjusting to the sudden caffeine rush.   
  
Finally he shook his head and looked down at his coffee cup. "She wasn't."   
  
"Are you sure?"   
  
"Yes I'm sure," he said almost furiously.   
  
"Are you sure she'd tell you?"   
  
He leaned back against his chair in an aggressive physical move. Scully knew she was stirring up a hornet's nest, but she had no other option.   
  
He gave her a look she took as unfriendly, and so she let out a sigh and sat back on her seat as well.   
  
"John, what would you have told Monica if she told you she was investigating a cult on her own?"   
  
"What do you mean?" he mumbled.   
  
"I mean, maybe she was scared to tell you she was investigating this cult. Maybe she thought you'd react the wrong way."   
  
He meant to make a rebuttal to that statement. He meant to let her know just how insulting it was to insinuate that he would shut Monica out if she tried to talk to him about her convictions. But he knew, deep down, that what she saying was partly true. More than once, she had been witness to his reactions to Monica's unconventional explanations when they tried to solve a case.   
  
But how would he have reacted this time?   
  
It probably didn't matter. She should have told him anyway. She should have asked for help. And he should have been there to help her.   
  
"So what we have to figure out is how deep she got. If she found out something important, something they didn't like, then that's probably the reason they took her," Scully said.   
  
They took her.   
  
He shook his head, finishing the last drops of his coffee, and then he reached inside his pockets and threw a twenty dollar bill on the table. He didn't know if he was still drunk, or the fact that almost three days had gone by, or the theories that were flying around the bureau, but something inside of him forced him to doubt all of this. Something was fooling him into thinking maybe Monica had gone on a trip without telling him. Maybe she was investigating a case undercover and Skinner made up this lie to protect the investigation. Maybe he just couldn't wake up. He had experienced that before.   
  
Or maybe he was wide awake but refused to open his eyes.   
  
"I don't know," he sighed.   
  
"That's okay, we'll find out. We'll find her," she reassured him with a nervous smile and then once again they were both in the car.   
  
Scully knew that they would need all the help they could get on this case. But she also knew that asking Follmer or even Kersh was out of the question. Follmer most likely didn't know about Skinner's discovery on the case, and she was sure that he wouldn't be pleased when he found out. So asking the bureau for assistance was out of the question.   
  
The realization that they were probably alone on this would have been heart-breaking at a different time, but she was so used to having the FBI fail them, that at this point she wouldn't expect anything else. It had been so long since she investigated a case that as they drove, she became nervous about working on an X-File without Mulder's help.   
  
But she had to do this, not only for herself and John, but for Monica. She wouldn't sit back and wait for another one of her friends to die. As she sat on her seat, she made a vow that, like John, she wouldn't rest until she found her friend.   
  
~*~   
  
Standing in front of the entrance as she had so many times before was almost physically painful. But for once, she ignored all kinds of emotions and waited until they were allowed in with the same precautions as many times before.   
  
"Jimmy," she smiled as the young man opened the door for the two agents.   
  
"Agent Scully, Agent Doggett. Wow, I never thought I'd see you again," Jimmy said with a slight chuckle.   
  
Doggett walked in after Scully and immediately looked around what used to be The Lone Gunmen's headquarters. As bare as it had been before, now, as Jimmy had decided to continue their work, it looked much as it did before they went bankrupt.   
  
It comforted him a little, but not enough.   
  
"We need your help with a case," John heard Scully say and he joined her and Jimmy in front of a computer screen.   
  
"Yeah, whatever you need," Jimmy replied.   
  
Scully smiled as she handed Jimmy a file. "We need to find anything you can on this man."   
  
Jimmy took the file and studied it carefully. "I'll do what I can." He looked up at John's too serious face and frowned. "Can I know what this is about?"   
  
Scully looked at John, as if she needed permission from him to talk about the case. "Agent Reyes was kidnapped-"   
  
"Oh, man," Jimmy lamented.   
  
"This man may be involved, as well as this cult he supposedly belongs to," Scully said.   
  
"Yeah, I-I'll try my best," Jimmy nodded with conviction.   
  
"Please," John finally said after being quiet through Scully and Jimmy's conversation. "Anything you can find, please let us know."   
  
Jimmy looked around the office as he let out a sigh. "It'll take me a while to go through all of this."   
  
"I think we may be able to help," Scully said as she threw John a glance.   
  
"Yeah," John sighed.   
  
"Don't worry, Agent Doggett. I know the guys must have something on this."   
  
Don't worry. If people only knew what the power of those words, what the phrase really meant, they'd probably stop saying it.   
  
But John showed him half a smile nonetheless and watched as Jimmy immediately began to work on the case.   
  
A whole day passed as they tried to find something, anything, on this man and the alleged cult. John tried to read as fast as he could as he went through as many files as his energy allowed. But he knew that going over everything would take them weeks. Scully had been on the phone with Skinner many times during the day to ask how the investigation was going, but Skinner was as lost as they were. At the end of the night, they were more confused than when the case began.   
  
Scully let out a sigh and walked with John to a corner as the sound of Jimmy's fingertips tapping at the keyboard filled the air.   
  
"You really think this is helping?" John whispered. "I feel like we're just wastin' our time here."   
  
"If the FBI has no information on this, the guys must have," Scully replied, watching his face and how the muscles of his jaw contracted as he stared at Jimmy across the room. "John, if Monica was investigating this cult, there has to be some documentation somewhere."   
  
"We didn't find anything in her apartment."   
  
"Did they find her briefcase in the car?"   
  
The briefcase. He hadn't even thought of that.   
  
"So they took that too." Scully sighed. "Something's missing. Someone else has to know what she was up to. How would she get to the middle of this without having someone else help her? There's a missing link in all of this, we just have to find out who he or she is."   
  
As John's thoughts raced around his head, chasing each other, he frowned, feeling a surge of energy go from his toes to the top of his head.   
  
"What?" Scully asked. "What is it?"   
  
He quickly walked over to Jimmy and wrote down his cell number in a small piece of paper. "Call me as soon as you find something."   
  
"Yeah," Jimmy said as he studied the number.   
  
Scully followed John as he practically ran out of the building.   
  
"John, where are we going?"   
  
~*~   
  
This time, she allowed John to drive, partly because he was sober, but mainly because he seemed to know something she didn't.   
  
He drove a little fast and Scully was scared he'd slam them into another car or a wall. Luck seemed to be on their side and they didn't even come across a cop along the way. Sometime later, they arrived at Monica's.   
  
"What are we doing here?" Scully asked as they got out of the car.   
  
John stared at the building next to Monica's and walked over to where Scully was. "I met this guy yesterday; he was there when we arrived at the scene two days ago. At first I thought he was just crazy, but now," he let out a sigh, not really believing he was thinking of this. "Now I think he may know something."   
  
"Who is he?" Scully asked as she walked behind him.   
  
"Some bozo who likes to trick people with cards," John replied.   
  
It occurred to John suddenly that he didn't even know the apartment where this man lived. When they walked inside, he tried to look up his name among the small mailboxes in the lobby, but couldn't find it.   
  
There was an old woman getting her mail, and John walked over, reaching for his badge.   
  
"Ma'am? I'm Agent Doggett, this is Agent Scully."   
  
"Is something wrong?" she asked.   
  
"We're looking for a man named Michael Bonsall."   
  
"Oh, Agent Doggett. I don't know that many people here," she replies.   
  
"He's six feet, maybe. Brown hair and eyes-"   
  
But the lady still looked confused.   
  
John scratched his neck as he thought of something else to say. "I think he works at the park, doing tricks with cards?"   
  
The woman immediately smiled. "Oh yes! Oh, he's such a sweet boy."   
  
Scully smiled. "I'm sure he is, but if you could tell us his apartment number, we'd really appreciate it."   
  
"Is he in trouble?"   
  
"No, we just need to ask him a couple of questions," Doggett replied.   
  
The woman looked around, as if she was sharing a secret, and then looked at John. "Apartment 228."   
  
"Thank you," John said appreciatively and ran up the flight of stairs with Scully close behind.   
  
When they got there, he knocked on the door a couple of times but didn't wait for a reply. "Michael Bonsall? This is Agent Doggett, open the door!"   
  
A couple of seconds later, they heard the chain unlock and the door opened.   
  
Bonsall watched John standing there, with a stranger, and let out a sigh. "Agent Doggett, I told you I don't know anything-"   
  
"I know," John interrupted him. "We just need to ask you a couple of questions."   
  
Bonsall looked from John to Scully. "Am I under arrest here?"   
  
"No, sir," Scully said. "But we really need your help, if you could come with us."   
  
Bonsall was about to close the door and tell these people to never come back. But something in John's face, this desperation, a frail hopelessness, made him let out a sigh and reach for his keys.   
  
"Okay."   
  
When they reached the bureau, John made sure Follmer wasn't around to proceed with the interrogation. But before they could reach a private room, John heard a woman cry out his name and he turned on his heels quickly.   
  
"John!"   
  
"Shit," he mumbled without moving his lips as he watched Monica's mother approach him, followed by her father.   
  
"John, where is she?" the woman cried as she held John's hands desperately.   
  
"I don't know, Clara," John said and motioned Scully to take Bonsall away.   
  
Monica's father was a tall, strong man, but he looked so frail and vulnerable that John couldn't look him in the eyes.   
  
"John, please. We need to know," he asked.   
  
"They said someone took her, John. Where is she?" Clara asked again.   
  
"I don't know, I'm sorry."   
  
John watched as Monica's mother began to cry and he tried to comfort her by rubbing her shoulders slightly.   
  
He had met Monica's parents back when they lived in New York and they had decided to pay her a surprise visit for her birthday. Back then, he had been so broken by his son's death and his marriage's disintegration that meeting these people had been a breath of fresh air. Monica's mother was just like her daughter, bright, kind, and considerate. Even without knowing John well, she had fed him, and taken care of him at a time of emotional tumult as if he was her own son. Seeing her like this, and not being able to comfort her as she had taken care of him, broke his heart to pieces.   
  
He finally looked up at Monica's father. "I'm gonna find her, I promise."   
  
With unshed tears in his eyes, Monica's father patted John's upper arms a couple of times. "I know you will."   
  
John smiled in spite of the stressful situation.   
  
"Clara, dejalo trabajar," he said as he tried to peel his wife off John.   
  
Clara looked up at John and kissed both his cheeks before her husband walked her away.   
  
His hands were shaking.   
  
Before he confronted Bonsall, he had to stop at the bathroom to compose himself. He tried not to look at himself in the mirror, scared of what he might see. But as he began to walk away he caught a glimpse of himself, and suddenly he looked exactly as he did almost ten years before, when his own son slipped away from his fingers.   
  
A sudden urge to drown his sorrows as he had the night before crawled through his skin, but he leaned against the wall of the bathroom until he talked himself out of it.   
  
When he reached the interrogation room, Scully was waiting for him outside.   
  
"Are you okay?" she asked in a low tone.   
  
"Yeah," John replied, looking through the small glass window of the door at Bonsall, who sat in a chair, playing with his fingers nervously.   
  
Scully stroked John's arm for a second and then took a small breath. "I'm gonna see that Monica's parents get settled in a hotel. Are you going to be okay here?"   
  
"Has he said anything?"   
  
"No," Scully said as she handed him the file. "I'll be in the lobby if you need me."   
  
When John walked inside the room, Bonsall was pressing his forehead against the palm of his hands. When he heard the door close, he turned around to see John standing there, looking slightly disturbed.   
  
But his face immediately turned serious and he walked over to hand him a file.   
  
"Do you know this man?"   
  
Bonsall opened the file and stared at the picture for a second. Then looked up at John and shook his head, "No."   
  
"Have you seen him walking around your neighborhood?"   
  
"Agent Doggett, do you know how many people live around that area?"   
  
"Have you seen him or not?" John asked sharply.   
  
"I'm not good with faces," Bonsall replied and gave the file back to John.   
  
John walked around to the other side of the table to lean into it as he did every time he interrogated someone. He hoped that at least his physical posture would scare Bonsall into telling him the truth.   
  
"I know you know something, and if you don't cooperate, you know what that makes you? That makes you the only suspect we have. So if you don't wanna spend the next couple of years in jail you better tell me what you know."   
  
Bonsall shook his head. "I told you-"   
  
"If you don't know anything, then why did you come with us?" John interrupted.   
  
Bonsall took a breath as he found himself not knowing how to respond.   
  
"I think you **do** know something," John began again. "But if you're scared of what you saw-"   
  
"You have no idea what you're talking about, Agent Doggett. You can't even imagine."   
  
"What am I talking about?" John asked as he watched Bonsall's breathing speed up a little.   
  
"You can't even imagine," Bonsall whispered as he looked up at Doggett with weary eyes, speaking every word carefully. "So **please**, just leave it alone."   
  
"I'm **not** gonna leave it alone," John said as he felt the anger beginning to rise. He was surer now than ever that this man knew something, probably was even involved, but wasn't cooperating.   
  
"I don't care how big this is, I'm not gonna leave it alone."   
  
Bonsall shook his head. "I can't help you, Agent Doggett. I'm sorry." He rose to walk out, but his body jerked when he felt John's hands grasp the back of his shirt.   
  
John slammed Bonsall against a wall and grasped his hands on the man's shirt, pressing his fists against his cheat and getting his face close to Bonsall's.   
  
"Tell me where she is or I'll kill you, you bastard!"   
  
"I can't!" Bonsall yelled.   
  
"You can't or you won't!!" John hissed.   
  
"I can't!" Bonsall repeated. "You're too late!"   
  
John didn't move, didn't even flinch. His eyes stared intensely into Bonsall's and for a moment he was scared he'd lose control and kill this man. His breathing was labored, and he was beginning to shake. But that only made his grip tighter on Bonsall's shirt, pressing him so hard against the wall that his knuckles were beginning to hurt.   
  
"What are you talkin' about!" he yelled again.   
  
"Agent Doggett?"   
  
John heard Scully's voice and saw her standing by the door with his peripheral vision, but he didn't even move.   
  
"John, let him go," Scully said. Her eyes went from John, who looked like a madman, to Bonsall, who looked like a small animal being hunted.   
  
She could hear John's breathing where she was, so she walked over to make sure he had heard her, make sure he knew she was there. "John."   
  
John pressed Bonsall's body against the wall so hard that the man could barely breathe. "This son of a bitch knows something and he ain't telling."   
  
"Let him go, John. He's innocent," Scully said.   
  
John finally looked over at Scully, and his grip on Bonsall loosened up just slightly. "What are you talkin' about?"   
  
With a motion of her head, Scully indicated him to follow her out. She left the room first, and John turned his stare to Bonsall again.   
  
"I'm sorry Agent Doggett," the man said.   
  
In a quick move, John pressed his arm against Bonsall's neck, getting close to his face again. "If something happens to Monica, I swear I'm gonna kill you."   
  
Bonsall pushed John's arm away and grasped his neck, breathing hard. He looked down as John walked out of the room and closed the door behind him.   
  
John walked out in time to hear Scully tell one of the agents to let Bonsall go.   
  
"What are you doing?"   
  
Scully tried to ignore that and walked down the hallway as John followed her.   
  
"Skinner may have found something."   
  
"What?" John asked.   
  
"He wants us to go down and investigate a house in the country out in Maryland. A report came in last night from a woman complaining of too much noise-"   
  
"That's it? Some noise? What does that got to do with the case?"   
  
"Only this house has been abandoned for years. This woman claims she was driving by when she heard some weird noises. She thinks there's something strange going on inside."   
  
John stopped walking to look down at Scully. "You really believe this cult theory?"   
  
"It's the best thing we've got, John."   
  
John let out a sigh, looking around the hallway.   
  
"John, I know how you feel."   
  
He let out a mocking chuckle at that, shaking his head.   
  
"I do. Mulder used to-"   
  
"This isn't about you and Mulder, Mulder's gone. This is about Monica," John said harshly.   
  
Scully looked at him for a moment, hurt by his statement, and then decided to leave herself out of this, but stay close enough to try to help. She knew deep down that John didn't mean what he had said, that his anger had taken over him. But it hurt nonetheless, especially since he was right, Mulder was gone, and she was in this alone.   
  
So she nodded, and changed the subject. "Skinner assigned some good agents on the case, they're ready to go."   
  
"Yeah," John mumbled as he turned to leave, aware of what he had said, but not able to repair the damage.   
  
As they walked into the lobby, they watched as Follmer appeared out of nowhere, walking towards them.   
  
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Follmer asked Doggett immediately, with a less than pleased look on his face.   
  
"I'm stayin' out of your investigation," John said and began to walk away again but Follmer stopped him.   
  
"I said stay away from the investigation, not start a new one."   
  
"I'm only tryin' to find my partner," John said.   
  
"I am in charge of this case, Agent Doggett. If you don't know how to follow instructions let me know so I can suspend you."   
  
John was going to walk away, but then he reached inside his pocket for his badge, held it in front of Follmer's face, and let it drop to the floor. He watched the anger on Follmer's face for a second, and then walked away with Scully close behind him.   
  
"Agent Doggett!" Follmer called out furiously.   
  
John didn't even look back.   
  
~*~   
  
As Scully drove into Maryland, John watched as an orange hue in the sky announced the rising of the sun. The clock on the dashboard indicated it was six am.   
  
Three days.   
  
Three days again, and on his way to find something he knew would show everyone he had failed. Again.   
  
"Time shouldn't scare you into giving up hope."   
  
Monica's words back then had given him something to hold on to, faith. But this time they failed. Just as he had.   
  
A line of cars drove out of the main road and into a small path that led to an old, abandoned house. Agents and cops immediately walked inside the house with guns. The rest walked around and to the back of the house. John followed closely as the face of the sun peeked through the small clouds that walked through the sky.   
  
But the day was cold, too cold for his taste. He looked around the backyard of the house, where it seemed like there had not been a human being around for years if not decades. The ground was wet from the overnight showers, and he could feel the almost frozen dirt through the soles of his shoes. All around him, men were shouting. They hadn't found anything, but they shouted to communicate with each other.   
  
He wished they would stop. He wished the only shouting he could hear was, "We found something. We found her." But that was never shouted. Yet they shouted.   
  
His head was pounding, and he knew it was a product of the sleepless hours he had spent reading the case over and over, reviewing their leads, calling the many police stations around the city, asking strangers on the streets if they had seen this woman, goes by the name of Monica Reyes, 5'8, around 130 pounds, dark hair, hazel eyes. Have you seen her? Are you sure? Will you please look at the pictures again? Every hour the same ritual would start, over and over.   
  
He had to keep moving. He knew that the moment he sat down and let his mind wander, he would start thinking of her, the way he treated her the night she was taken away. He'd think of the look on her face when he told her off, the way she picked up her umbrella and walked out of the office. He'd think of what she must have been thinking back then. He'd think of her walking towards her apartment, a blow to the back of her head, the sound produced when her flesh met the side window of her car.   
  
Then nothing.   
  
And he would think of her current state. Was she cold? Was she hurt? Hungry? He couldn't allow those thoughts into his head. The image of Monica hurting, bleeding, crying, dead...   
  
Out of the corner of his eye he caught a shine, something on the ground. A quick flick, and it was gone. He was about to walk away when it came back, for a second, and then it was gone. He walked towards it, or where he thought it was. Looking around the damp dirt, he finally spotted something silver, almost completely buried underground. Crouching in front of it, a huge void inside of him made his stomach painfully aware.   
  
"Agent Scully!?" he called out, and digging inside his pockets, he grabbed a pair of gloves.   
  
Scully came over quickly, but remained standing. "What is it?"   
  
John removed dirt around the edges, and finally dug the silver object out, leaving a ring print on the ground.   
  
"What is it?"   
  
"It's her ring," John breathed, looking it over, all around.   
  
Scully looked at it closely, trying to remember Monica ever wearing a ring like that. "Are you sure?"   
  
"She wears it on her middle finger, every day, ever since I've known her," John said, in his voice a glimmer of hope, but also fright.   
  
Scully raised her eyebrows in doubt looking around the area. "John, this place has been abandoned for years. That ring..."   
  
"This is Monica's ring," John said decisively, desperately trying to convince her, and himself, that his testimony was right. "Maybe she left it here for us. Maybe she knew we were comin'."   
  
Scully let out a sigh of reluctance. She wished he wouldn't build his hopes up like this. They had been looking for Monica for three days, and this was the closest thing they had found, an old ring, that probably wasn't even Monica's but John's desperation fooled him into thinking so.   
  
"Well, if there were any finger prints, the rain surely washed them away," Scully said.   
  
"This is Monica's ring, Scully. She was here," John said.   
  
In his eyes, she saw insecurity, fear, and they begged for her to believe him, what he said. They implored her to back up his theory, to assure him that Monica was okay, this was her ring, and they would find her soon. Scully didn't want to disappoint him, but she didn't want to lie to him either. If John was absolutely certain this was Monica's ring, then what could she do? She did remember Monica wearing silver, but she never paid attention to such things.   
  
The rain had probably washed the finger prints away from the ring, true, but nonetheless, Scully reached inside her pocket for a little plastic bag and let John drop the ring inside.   
  
He looked at her with gratitude, and she could tell by the more pronounced lines on his forehead that he was losing his sanity. It was okay. She was losing hers as well.   
  
"Agents?" one of the cops said as he walked over.   
  
"D'you find anything?" John asked.   
  
"Well, we know this house has been abandoned for years. The only people who come here are junkies; they shoot up, clear the evidence and leave."   
  
"What about the calls of complaint we received last night?"   
  
"Let me tell you something about folks around here, Agent Scully. There's nothing exciting going on around town. This house has been abandoned for more than thirty years. When houses are abandoned people like to make up stories of ghosts and strange noises to make themselves believe there's something special in town. But I can assure you, I've been here more times than I can count, and I've never seen any ghosts."   
  
He took a breath and continued. "However, it seems like there was someone here last night, there's some footprints on the floor, the plumbing has been used…"   
  
"The bathroom?" John asked.   
  
"And the sink," the cop said.   
  
"There's running water?" Scully asked.   
  
"I guess the city never really shut it off," the cop said.   
  
"Or someone paid to leave it on," John said.   
  
"No way. The house has no documents, no owners, no bills. We can try and look for prints, but whoever was here made sure the place was clean before they left," the cop said. "Doesn't look like they left too long ago, though."   
  
"How d'you figure?" John asked.   
  
"There's footprints on the mud in front of the house, they seem fresh, and I can tell you right now, they're not kids'. Do you remember what kind of shoes Agent Reyes wore that night?" the cop asked.   
  
John looked at Scully, expecting her to have the answer. Men never noticed these things, how was he supposed to know? He remembered what she was wearing, some black suit with a white shirt underneath. Fashion sense dictated she must have been wearing black shoes, but how the hell was he supposed to know? He was supposed to know. He was her partner, for Christ's sake. He was her friend, for Christ's sake. He was an agent, an FBI agent. A bad one at that.   
  
"She was wearing black boots, we can go to her apartment later to get her shoe size," Scully said.   
  
"Let us know as soon as you do," the cop said and walked away.   
  
John looked at Scully, even more confused than he had been before. Suddenly he turned around, and headed inside the house.   
  
"John," Scully followed. "What are you thinking?"   
  
John didn't say anything, but walked inside and began to look in every room sometimes decisively, sometimes hesitantly.   
  
"John, what are you doing?" Scully repeated.   
  
John suddenly turned around, looking lost and almost disoriented. "Maybe... maybe there's..." he took a sigh and let it out quickly. "Maybe she left somethin' else behind, some... some hair, or..."   
  
"The evidence team is already working on that," Scully said, placing her hand on his upper arm. His muscles tensed up immediately. "John, you need to get some sleep."   
  
"They couldn't have gone far... if they just left. Maybe we passed them down the road, maybe we even saw 'em," he said.   
  
"John, please go home. We'll call you as soon as something comes up," Scully said.   
  
"NO!" John yelled, and with that, punched the wooden wall. A shooting pain traveled from his fist to his brain, but he didn't pay any attention to it.   
  
Scully jumped back, and everything in the house went quiet. Everybody turned to look at him, at them, and looking around, Scully motioned for them to go back to work. Very gently and cautiously, she put her hand on his arm again. He didn't move. His head was bowed, eyes closed, fist pressing against his mouth. She knew that if he moved, if he even blinked, he'd break down. So she gave him a couple of minutes, where they both stood motionless. Finally, she pressed against his muscles softly.   
  
"Come on," she almost whispered, trying to get him to move.   
  
John finally looked up, the clarity of the day making his eyes dilate. Without looking at Scully or even acknowledging her, he walked a quick pace out of the house.   
  
She watched him go, and let out a long sigh. Looking around, she nodded at one of the agents. "If you find anything."   
  
He nodded back at her and she walked out to find John on the side of the car, forehead pressed against the side of the door. She let out a sigh of frustration at her inability to help a friend in need. John stood in front of her practically falling to pieces. And Monica, for all she knew, could be dead. She hated this feeling, this feeling of uselessness, of helplessness. She had lived through this when Mulder was gone; she wasn't sure she could go through it all again.   
  
"Agent Doggett!"   
  
She watched as John practically jumped up, trying to find the voice amongst the many agents combing the area.   
  
When he did, she ran behind him, and they approached a young agent who stood in front of a crop field.   
  
"You should come see this," he said in a serious tone.   
  
"What is it?" John asked quickly, and the young agent suddenly walked into the field. The grass was so tall that they could practically get lost in it and never come out. John picked up his pace and practically walked in front of the agent, letting him know he was in no mood for riddles.   
  
Finally, the agent reached a spot and knelt down in front of a burned piece of land.   
  
"What is this?" John asked, kneeling down and touching the burned ground with his fingers, and then inspecting the ashes closely.   
  
"Someone seems to have burned it," the agent said.   
  
Scully rolled her eyes. 'Thanks, Captain Obvious.'   
  
"And?" John asked irritably.   
  
"Well it, it seems to have been done recently." Both John and Scully gave him an exasperated look, and the young agent recoiled slightly. "I-I think."   
  
Scully watched as John gave her a look. She herself looked around, walking forward and clearing some grass out of the way. The burned spot seemed to follow into a path, almost like a road. She frowned, watching as there was still a little smoke coming out of the burned grass.   
  
Suddenly she walked away, towards the abandoned house. She felt someone follow and immediately assumed it was Doggett and sure enough, he asked her what she was up to.   
  
"I don't know," she murmured. When she reached the house, she asked for assistance, and after finding an old ladder, she carefully made it up to the roof with John's constant questions following closely.   
  
"What the hell are you doing up here?" he asked once more as he reached the roof shortly after her. He watched her let out a sigh. Not a sigh of frustration, or tiredness. It was something different, explicable when he followed her eyes to the sight in front of them.   
  
His own breath was taken away as they both stared at a giant crop circle. There was still slight smoked rising from some of the areas. Its unusual pattern immediately convinced Scully that this had gone from a simple kidnapping case, to something much more complicated.   
  
She felt John's tension increase as he fought against his own convictions over the sight they both saw in front of them. He could practically feel Monica slipping farther away from his fingers and his own frustration suddenly took an air of its own, almost suffocating him and Scully as well.   
  
A simple kidnapping case they could solve. But this. This…   
  
Doggett looked at Scully, breathing heavily, and shook his head at her as she gave him a knowing look.   
  
And then he finally understood Bonsall's words.   
  
You're too late.   
  
  
To be continued…


	4. Terra Firma, Part 4

Title: Terra Firma   
Author: Carolina   
Category: D/R UST, DSF   
Author's notes: I'm sorry this part took so long. I was in New York for a week, not to mention I'm in an abusive relationship with my muse. He left me and my kids and disappeared somewhere in Mexico. Thanks again to Nicole for being a smashing beta!   
  
  
  
-TERRA FIRMA 4-   
  
  
  
"Monica?"   
  
"Hmm?"   
  
"Your two hours off started twenty minutes ago."   
  
She let out a sigh, turning on her seat again to face him. "I can't sleep."   
  
He didn't reply and so she watched the side of his face intensely as he stared at a building not too far form the car. A bright, neon sign reading "Live Nudes" illuminated his face every two seconds as the lights flashed, but he seemed oblivious to it.   
  
She looked at the building and the few men standing in front of it and let out a sigh. "John, let's go home. This guy's innocent."   
  
"How d'you know?"   
  
"I just know," she said.   
  
"Is he giving you a vibe?" he smiled at her, trying to turn the statement into a joke.   
  
She sensed a hint of sarcasm, and trying to stop the usual upcoming remark about how crazy she was, she decided to divert the subject slightly. "No, I just don't like this neighborhood."   
  
"We're armed," he said as he continued to watch the building.   
  
"That won't help us much if someone just jumps in front of the car and starts shooting," Monica replied.   
  
"You're not scared of a stake out. Are you, Agent Reyes??"   
  
She smiled despite her best efforts not to. "You can never be too cautious, Agent Doggett."   
  
"Okay, McGruff, where were you last week when that big fat guy came after me?"   
  
"I was probably too busy shooting him down, John," Monica said a little loudly with a chuckle, which was followed by one of his. "Besides, I've saved your tushie more than you've saved mine."   
  
"Oh yeah?"   
  
"Yeah."   
  
"You keepin' count now?" he asked as he looked briefly at her and then at the building.   
  
"Let's just say at this point I can walk off with you in my arms while The Bodyguard soundtrack plays on the background."   
  
He let out a hearty chuckle which gradually disappeared. Then he shook his head and continued his watch. "You're puttin' a cape over your shoulders, Monica."   
  
"Am I?"   
  
"You're too peaceful to do stuff like that."   
  
"I'm an FBI agent," she replied.   
  
"That's different."   
  
"How?" she asked.   
  
"You don't know what you're talkin' about."   
  
She shook her head. "I always know what I'm talking about, John."   
  
He gave her a questioning look; one that almost meant business but that deep down they both knew was just all bark and no bite. "Would you take a bullet for me?"   
  
He expected her to laugh and make a joke, but instead she remained serious and nodded slightly. "In a heartbeat."   
  
"John?"   
  
The memory was quickly scared away.   
  
John looked up to see Scully standing by his hospital room, staring at him with that trademark reluctant-worried look he had come to know so well.   
  
She walked over to stand in front of the blue bed he sat on and smiled just slightly. "Good news, you don't have any broken bones. But you're gonna have to wear a bandage for a while."   
  
He didn't say anything as she reached for a tray, sat in front of him in a stool and began to bandage his hand and wrist carefully.   
  
Scully looked up at him and saw him staring at his hand, watching how the bandage made circles around his wrist and wrapped it securely. A couple of minutes passed and he remained oblivious to the casual glances she kept throwing up at him, until she finally let out a small sigh and without looking up this time asked, "Are you okay?"   
  
John seemed to consider that for two seconds and then scoffed almost inaudibly, shaking his head slightly. "Tonight I'm gonna have to write a report for Skinner sayin' that my partner was taken away by little green men and all we have to prove for it is a weird pattern in the middle of a crop field."   
  
Scully finally finished bandaging his arm and pressed her lips together to try to form a smile, but it didn't work very well. "I think given the evidence-"   
  
"Given what evidence?" he interrupted her harshly.   
  
"John, please," she pleaded. "Don't make this harder than it already is. This isn't just happening to you, Monica is my friend too."   
  
John looked to the side for a second, and suddenly realized she was right. Defeated, he let his head drop, and brought his free arm up to rub the side of his face.   
  
Scully witnessed the internal struggle and then stood up, putting the stool away. "I'll write the report, but you haven't slept in days. So I think we should take a break for now."   
  
He talked himself into giving up, into stopping these absurd attempts to push her away. His father once told him that if he ever got lost at sea, all he had to do was sail towards the lighthouse. He realized now that Scully was probably the only light shining in his direction.   
  
So he decided to hang on to that little piece of sanity he had left. Grabbing his coat, he followed her out of the hospital room, and half an hour later, he found himself in her apartment.   
  
"I'm sorry about the mess," she said as she turned on the lights and let her purse rest in a small table next to the door.   
  
By mess, she meant a couple of files thrown over the coffee table in the living room. He noticed how different the apartment looked now, how after just a couple of weeks all the toys were gone, and most of the pictures that rested on the table behind her couch were nowhere to be found. He knew that this was her way of trying to forget and move on. He knew, from experience, that it wouldn't work that way.   
  
"Why don't you take a shower, I'll find you some clothes."   
  
He frowned and thought that over until he realized she was probably talking about Mulder's clothes. And so without protesting, he walked into the bathroom and turned the hot water on.   
  
The entire bathroom was quickly filled with fog, and when he put his finger under the water, it immediately turned red.   
  
But he didn't seem to mind. Pain was a welcomed feeling that he hoped would clear away all the numbness. Pain was a sign that he was still alive, and a sign that this wasn't just a dream. Pain was his punishment for everything he had done wrong in his life, for all the people he had let down.   
  
He put his head under the water and closed his eyes as his whole body became alert. It was almost nice to feel himself again, to know he still had skin, flesh, bones.   
  
Yet at the same time, he was hoping the numbness would stay. He was no stranger to alienation, from his own sense of self. Maybe it was better to stay distanced and removed. Then maybe, just maybe, physically participating in the investigation while remaining emotionally removed would make it easier for him to believe this was just another case, another victim.   
  
His body leaned against the wall of the shower as he let the water cascade down his body and disappear down the drain. He heard a soft knock on the door and didn't have time to reply before Scully walked in.   
  
"I put some clothes on top of the sink, okay?"   
  
By the time he opened his mouth to reply, she was gone.   
  
John would remain in the same position, standing up, and leaning against the wall, until the water ran cold.   
  
She left a pair of jeans and a gray t-shirt that smelled of Tide and some fancy fabric softener. For a moment it didn't seem right to wear Mulder's clothes, to fade away the scent that seemed to be the only reminder she had left from him. But his own clothes had disappeared from the floor and he immediately assumed she was washing them.   
  
And then he began to wonder why Scully was doing all of this. Yes, she and Monica were very close, but why set herself up for disappointment again? Why keep the door wide open for security to freely wander out?   
  
But he remembered those days after Luke had been found, how he had immersed himself in more work, how it was a cheap substitute for mourning. How if he turned his back on the situation, he could pretend everything was happening to someone else. He was there, but he wasn't there. He could feel it, but he cold also ignore it. He could see it, but chose not to believe it. That's how denial works. It's a nice soft, warm, and secure coat that kept telling him there was no need to accept everything that has been set upon him. It told him that everything was okay, and that even if it seemed hell was on earth, hell wasn't for him. It was for someone else. And even if it was so close that it could stifle him, he could always disregard it. Destruction never seems to matter when you're dancing with denial.   
  
Denial had always been his best companion. It had also been his worst enemy.   
  
Scully waited until she heard him open the bathroom door to walk over and coax him into taking a nap. His first reaction, as she had expected, was to protest against it, claiming that sleeping never solved a case. But it didn't take her long to convince him that exhaustion never solver a case either.   
  
And ten minutes after she closed her bedroom door, she heard his soft snores reverberating through the apartment. Finally, she was able to breath, sit down, and take a moment for herself.   
  
After a couple of minutes of self-relaxation, she turned on her laptop and stared blankly at the flashing underscore that encouraged her to begin writing. But despite the coherent lining of thoughts that appeared in her mind, she was unable to put it all into words. She tried to go through some of Mulder's files on her head, try to remember how they began and how they ended. But that didn't work either, so she tried to pretend this case involved a complete stranger, someone her and John would never meet or ever care about.   
  
So she changed the victim's name and slowly began to type.   
  
She found that an exaggerated amount of words still didn't make their theory sound right, no matter how fancy they were; it all came out to one page. She decided not to read it, fearing her skeptic side would tear the page to pieces and throw it on the trash can, laugh in her face and convince her this was just a simple kidnapping case and that she had been spending too much time with Mulder. She wouldn't let that side of her win the war this time.   
  
After making sure John was still asleep, she reached inside the pocket of his jacket for Monica's ring and drove to the bureau to leave the report with Skinner's secretary and their only evidence at the lab.   
  
When she made it back, John was still asleep. He had only slept 2 hours in the last four days, so she knew he'd be under for a very long time. Giving herself some permission to rest as well, she sat on the couch and let the back of her neck feel the softness of her own cushions for just one second.   
  
But one second was enough for her body to succumb to sleep.   
  
This time, she found herself in the bureau's morgue, staring at the body of a man as it lay on the table. As she looked at the body, she remembered how once upon a time she had been in this same place, wearing the same clothes, feeling the same emotional tumult inside of her. This man has drowned.   
  
Suddenly her whole body froze at the realization that she wasn't alone in the room. She looked up and gasped, jumping a couple of inches back.   
  
"Monica?"   
  
Scully took a step forward, and another, and the closer she got to her friend, she farther she seemed. Somehow she was able to realize this was probably the most lucid dream she had ever had.   
  
"I know what you're afraid of," Monica said, arms crossed in front of her, a worried look on her face.   
  
"Monica-"   
  
The room seemed to expand with each breath Scully took, so she tried not to breathe, but it didn't stop the dream.   
  
Suddenly there was a rumbling noise. Scully looked around and the ground began to shake, making the many instruments around the morgue all fall to the floor from their respective shelves.   
  
"Monica?"   
  
When she looked at Monica again, the rumbling became louder and a bright light enveloped the room. Scully brought her hand to her eyes to cover them and tried to peek through her fingers. She tried to keep walking, but there seemed to be an invisible force in front of her that refused to let her through.   
  
"Monica!"   
  
The rumbling suddenly intensified so much that her ears began to hurt, and the light was so bright that she had to kneel down to cover her ears and eyes. Scully tried to scream but no voice came out of her, and when she thought she'd die from the intensity of the situation, the light was gone along with the rumbling sound.   
  
So was Monica.   
  
Her body jerked up as Scully immediately looked around her living room, and then let her body lean back as she closed her eyes and caught her breath.   
  
"Monica!"   
  
For a moment she thought the dream was back, until she realized the cries were coming from her room. She quickly rushed over and opened the door to glance inside, where John's body moved restlessly, tangled up in sheets.   
  
Scully didn't want to scare him awake, and for a moment she thought of not waking him at all, but then she put a hand on his shoulder and whispered, "John."   
  
When that didn't work, she pushed on his arm and said his name louder.   
  
His body snapped forward with a gasp and he quickly looked around the strange room, until his eyes bumped Scully's face. She seemed a little nervous and he could feel his own heart threatening to jump out of his chest. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and tried to calm himself down but it was harder than he thought it would be.   
  
"Here," Scully said as she gave him a glass with water and watched as he drank almost half of it in one gulp.   
  
He put the glass back on the night table and let out a sigh. "What time is it?"   
  
Scully threw a quick glance at her alarm clock. "You've been asleep for almost twelve hours."   
  
He didn't reply to that and she sat on the bed, not too close to him. "Do you wanna talk about it?"   
  
He shook his head first and then replied, "No."   
  
Scully followed him with her eyes as he walked out of the bedroom, and as he did, her phone began to ring.   
  
"Hello?"   
  
Once in the bathroom, John locked the door and stood in front of the sink. While not daring to look himself in the mirror, he turned on the faucet and let the water run for a couple of seconds before he bent over and splashed his face with it, over and over. From outside, he could hear Scully's muffled voice and he reminded himself it could be news about Monica, but he couldn't find the will to go outside and face the news.   
  
When he turned the faucet off, he let his body fall on the toilet seat and he let out a raspy sigh as he looked forward at the bathroom tiles that decorated the walls. He dried his face with the side of his arm, and once they fell on his thighs, he stared at his hands.   
  
Barbara used to love his hands. She used to say that they were strong, brave, and capable of anything. She said she felt safe when his hands held hers. Back then, he thought of it as more romantic than manly and he brushed it off like a bead of sweat on the side of his face.   
  
But now he couldn't help to smile sardonically at the turn of events. Those hands she loved, so strong, brave, and capable of anything, didn't seem to be of any help now that he needed them to be. His own strong hands couldn't save his own son. His own hands couldn't keep his wife next to him when he needed her the most. His own hands, capable of anything, couldn't even protect his own partner.   
  
His own hands were slipping off from the rail and couldn't even prevent the inevitable falling.   
  
He heard Scully as she hung up the phone and without asking for his permission, his own legs guided him outside.   
  
She was putting her coat back on and handed him a granola bar along with a plastic glass filled with orange juice.   
  
"That was Jimmy, he says he may have found something."   
  
"May?" John asked.   
  
Scully grabbed his car keys, telling John that Jimmy wanted to see them, and once again, they were in the car.   
  
On the drive over, millions of thought ran through John's mind like greyhounds around a track. The fingers of his good hand were fidgeting and he found himself nervous about the news Jimmy might have for them. Scully already believed the abduction theory to be true, and Jimmy's information could make her theory valid, whether John would accept its validity or not.   
  
When they got there, Scully was surprised and pleased to see Yves, and regarded the woman with a smile. She was also pleased to see a surge of energy in John she was scared had disappeared.   
  
"What'd you find?" John asked as he approached Jimmy, who was still seating in front of the computer, tired and drained from nearly a day without sleep.   
  
"Well, there's nothing much on this guy Boyd Chase, or Simon Brewer, whatever you wanna call him. Only son, went from foster home to foster home-"   
  
"We already know that," John interrupted him. "What about this so-called cult?"   
  
"We still don't know much about it, Agent Doggett. The authorities in California were trying to investigate them during the sixties, but all of a sudden the case was closed, for not other reason that the existence of the group had been just a rumor. Since then, the FBI has been unable to re-open an investigation, which is most likely the reason why Agent Mulder was never able to find anything on these people."   
  
"Why did the authorities deemed it a rumor?" Scully asked.   
  
"That's what I'd like to know," Jimmy replied.   
  
"So that's it, we still have nothing," John said.   
  
"It's more complicated than that, Agent Doggett," Yves said as she approached them. "I think you must have learned while working in the X-Files that if there's nothing there, there's something there."   
  
"You're talking riddles now," Doggett replied.   
  
"The men who were investigating this cult have all disappeared. The ones who had close ties to the investigation claim they know nothing about the case. I don't think it's a coincidence that all these men are gone. I don't think that this is just a rumor. I think this cult does exist," Yves said.   
  
"I don't understand," Scully said. "It's almost impossible for a group to move around the country unnoticed. Sooner or later someone must have found them out."   
  
"Like I said, it's more complicated than that. I think they're being protected."   
  
"So you think they're bribing officials," Doggett said.   
  
"No, I mean these are very powerful people, Agent Doggett," Yves replied.   
  
Scully looked at the people around the room and bit her tongue before she added, "An alien cult?"   
  
"A very elusive alien cult," Jimmy replied.   
  
Scully looked from Jimmy to John, whose whirlwind of emotions contorted the muscles of his face into an expression she had never seen before.   
  
"So how do we find them?" she asked Jimmy.   
  
Yves shook her head with a sarcastic smiled. "That's almost impossible, Agent Scully. If Agent Reyes was investigating this cult, she probably went too far and this was the price she paid for it. I know this sounds absurd, given your line of work, but right know I think it's best if you just wait."   
  
"Wait?" John asked suddenly.   
  
"For your own safety, yes," Yves replied.   
  
John let out a hot, angry breath and looked around the room in frustration. Scully's cell phone began to ring and she walked to one corner of the room to answer.   
  
"I'm sorry, Agent Doggett," Yves added. "I know these aren't good news, but we'll keep investigating until we find something tangible."   
  
John let his hands rest on his hips as he stared at her in disbelief, even thought he knew it wasn't very honorable to shoot the messenger.   
  
Scully walked over as she put her cell phone away. "That was Kersh, he wants to see us right away."   
  
John let out a grunt. The cherry on top of the sundae.   
  
---   
  
"Alien abduction," Kersh read the report back to Scully and Doggett with an air of absurdity. "Am I reading the right report?"   
  
Scully threw a glance at Skinner, who stood next to Kersh's desk, and then nodded. "Yes."   
  
"Agent Doggett?" Kersh asked.   
  
John looked at Scully and then at Kersh, and gave his superior a lazy nod without looking him in the eyes.   
  
"Do you have any evidence?"   
  
"We, uh," Scully began. "We found Agent Reyes' ring at the scene of the crime. And there's also a strange pattern burned into the crop field behind the house-"   
  
"A crop circle, Agent Scully," Kersh interrupted.   
  
"A crop circle," Scully repeated.   
  
Kersh looked from Scully to Doggett over and over with a look on his face neither of them took as friendly.   
  
Both agents braced themselves.   
  
He took a small breath and began. "A.D. Follmer has agents combing all 50 states. He has contacted authorities in Canada and Mexico and they are also helping on the search. So far they haven't been able to find a hint as to the whereabouts of Agent Reyes."   
  
He stood up and walked around his desk to stand in front of Doggett and Scully. "I have heard the most ridiculous theories coming from that office down in the basement. Monsters, ghosts, abductions, conspiracies… And while I may not believe most of these theories, I've tried my best to respect the kind of intelligence it takes to solve these cases. It may not show most of the time, but I assure you it's there."   
  
'Bullshit,' John thought as he gave Skinner a suspicious frown.   
  
"I am going to allow you to proceed with this investigation, Agent Doggett. Not because I believe in this theory, but because I believe you will get closer to the center of this than anyone else in the bureau."   
  
He reached for his desk and handed John his badge. "Keep me informed."   
  
John took the badge, flabbergasted, and put it in his pocket. "Thank you."   
  
"This doesn't mean you're allowed to neglect your work, Agent Doggett. I am still waiting for those reports you owe me. You can concentrate on Agent Reyes' case as hard as you want, just don't let it blind you. Now get out of here," Kersh said and went to sit on his chair again. No one moved. "Is there something you want to add?"   
  
"No, sir," Scully said as she stood up and all three of them walked out of the office.   
  
Once they were outside, John turned to Skinner. "The hell was that about?"   
  
"Don't question it, Agent Doggett. Just be grateful," Skinner replied.   
  
John remained quiet, but he thought there was something extremely suspicious about Kersh's supportive speech. Skinner and Scully may have bought it, but he didn't.   
  
"I called the lab before you came over; they say they have your results," Skinner said.   
  
"What results?" John asked.   
  
"Monica's ring, I thought maybe they'd be able to find something," Scully said.   
  
She excused herself and left both men standing there. Skinner turned to John and gave him a vague apologetic look, one John had come to know very well.   
  
"Are you okay with this theory?"   
  
John just scoffed once again and shook his head while she looked down at his shoes.   
  
"John, no one would think you're crazy if you allowed yourself to believe."   
  
John looked up at Skinner and watched as the man gave his upper arm a pat and walked away. He wished people would just stop trying to play therapist with him.   
  
When Scully came out of the lab, she couldn't find John where she had left him. So she walked down the stairs and found him in his office, sitting in Monica's chair and staring straight ahead.   
  
"John?"   
  
He looked up at her for a moment and then continued to stare at Monica's Mexican decorative paperweight.   
  
"Hey," she said as she leaned against Monica's desk. She was about to ask if he was okay, but she figured that was the last question he wanted to hear at the moment.   
  
"You know she eats Polish sausages with plates?" he murmured. "For Christ's sake."   
  
She smiled and put the lab report on the desk. "They couldn't find any finger prints on the ring."   
  
"What'd they find?" John asked.   
  
"Mostly dirt, but, um, there was a little bit of blood mixed in it."   
  
"Monica's?" John asked.   
  
Scully nodded and watched as John shook his head in disappointment and anger, rubbing the side of his face.   
  
"This isn't right," he said.   
  
"I know," Scully replied as she pressed on the skin between his neck and right shoulder, trying to release some of the tension there. She was surprised he let her.   
  
"I'm sorry, John. I wish there was something more I could do."   
  
"I know," he said in a raspy voice.   
  
"Just don't give up," Scully added. "No matter what we find. I know it's hard, but you have to hang in here."   
  
John finally looked up at her and she thought she saw his eyes water up, but he quickly looked down and blinked the tears away.   
  
"Thanks," he whispered.   
  
John felt a moment of awkwardness follow his word and so he cleared his throat and stood up. "Will you call me if something comes up?"   
  
"Yeah," she said, without asking him where he was heading. Scully picked up the lab report, giving Monica's paperweight a glance, and decided to browse through Mulder's reference books one more time. Maybe there was something she had overlooked the last time.   
  
John was glad he was finally behind the wheel, and even though his hand still hurt a little, he was able to manage the steering wheel as well as he always did.   
  
He had found the notion of time seemed to be foreign to him now. The sun was either coming up or going down, and there was an orange hue in the sky that made the mood seem like something taken out of one of those romantic movies. John guessed now they were getting close to the fifth day. He couldn't bring himself to look at the clock because his brain involuntarily started doing math and it reminded him the hours, minutes, and seconds Monica had been gone. So he purposely hid his watch and tried not to look at the many clocks at the bureau, his house, and even the one in his car.   
  
He parked his car in front of the hotel Scully had put Monica's parents in. He knew that they, too, didn't care about time anymore. If they were feeling anything near what he felt when Luke had been taken away, then their eyes would remain open until Monica came back.   
  
The hotel was neither fancy nor trashy, and to the side, there was a small park where he quickly recognized Monica's father sitting on one of the benches. He couldn't see Clara anywhere, and he was hoping Monica's disappearance wouldn't do to them what Luke's did to him and Barbara.   
  
John respected Monica's father immensely. He was a quiet man, who had a business in Mexico which demanded he travel to the United States often. He also liked to pay Monica surprise visits, even thought Monica claimed she could always "feel" when her parents were near. Monica once admitted to him that she acted surprised anyway.   
  
"Gabriel?" John said as he approached the man, who jumped when he heard his name.   
  
"John? Did you find her?"   
  
John shook his head while looking down, and sat next to the tall man. The two were in silence for a couple of minutes until Gabriel turned to John.   
  
"If you found something-"   
  
"You'd be the first to know," John finished the sentence for him. For a moment he considered telling the older man about Scully's "theory", but he knew that would only make matters worse. He put himself in their shoes and tried to think of his reaction if someone would have told him that Luke had been abducted. He was sure the reaction wouldn't be pleasing. So he decided he'd rather protect them from that and remained silent.   
  
"Agent Follmer says that the more days go by, the harder it will be to find her. Is that true?"   
  
John looked over and nodded again. He wondered if Monica's parents knew Monica had dated Brad for almost two years. By the way Gabriel called him Agent Follmer, instead of A.D. or Brad, he guessed they didn't.   
  
Gabriel looked down at his lap quietly. "He says you are not in the investigation."   
  
"I'm doin' my own investigation," John said.   
  
"He says we should not listen to you. I don't think he likes you," Gabriel added.   
  
"The feeling's mutual," John said with a soft chuckle.   
  
Gabriel smiled for a moment and then stared ahead at a couple pushing a stroller across the park. "I just want my baby back, John. Okay?"   
  
"Okay," John said.   
  
They were in silence again and John was finally able to find out what time of day it was when the sun kept going down instead of going up.   
  
"When Monica said she wanted to join the FBI," Gabriel started again and John gave him his attention.   
  
"We didn't want her to. It is too dangerous, especially for a woman. We were mad at her, and she was mad at us, but she did it anyway. And we would go to bed every night praying for her. Sometimes I think she does not think about consequences before she does something."   
  
John nodded in agreement and allowed the man to continue.   
  
"Then she says she is going to work in a thing called the X-Files. I thought she must have been crazy, chasing after monsters. But then she said she would be working with you, I was glad. I knew you would never let anything happen to her," he said.   
  
That only made John feel like a huge pile of horse crap. He wondered if they knew he was the real reason why Monica joined the X-Files.   
  
He closed his eyes and sighed. "I'm sorry."   
  
"It's not your fault, John. These things just happen."   
  
John stared at the ground until the sun went down and then took a long breath. "I think she took better care of me than I ever did of her."   
  
Gabriel looked at John for a moment and shook his head. "She never thought that. She doesn't think that."   
  
John looked over with an appreciatively smile on his face and his eyes were beginning to moist. So he looked away and blinked his eyes dry.   
  
John suddenly realized he wasn't as lonely in this as he thought he was.   
  
He would visit or at least call them every day for as long as they remained in DC. He found that with them there, this journey was a little more bearable, less excruciating. They fed off each other; Monica's parents giving John words of encouragement and John giving Monica's parents hope.   
  
But when he turned around and headed home, he found himself unable to fill that expanding void inside of him. Scully took Yves side and convinced John it would be best if they proceed very carefully, and way too slowly for his taste. He couldn't understand where all this nonsense came from. He didn't know about FBI agents, but cops went on with their investigations, no matter how dangerous they might be. Firemen ran into burning buildings every day of their lives to save people they had absolutely no personal ties with, and they never hesitated.   
  
He tried his best to think of their reasons or fears, but he still couldn't understand how they would turn their backs on one of their better agents because this cult was "too dangerous".   
  
John Doggett had never been a revel, but he had decided it would be best if he took matters into his own hands.   
  
So without telling Scully, he'd take off every day after work and drove around the city with high hopes, but went home empty handed. During weekends, he'd venture off into the adjourning states, driving along the woods and asking the locals if they had seen anything suspicious. Other times, he'd drive off to the house where they had found Monica's ring and sit on back porch, waiting.   
  
He had taken hundreds of pictures of Monica and had handed them out to more people that he could count. Police stations along the city were starting to hang up on him every time he called, which was everyday, sometimes twice. Other than Monica's ring and the blood they had found on the side of her car, there was nothing other evidence of her whereabouts. It was as if she had vanished from the face of the earth.   
  
A week and a half after Kersh had allowed him to continue the investigation, he had found nothing.   
  
The days at the office were probably worse than the nights at home. Monica's desk remained untouched, and like a guardian dog, he would growl at anyone who tried to move any of her things. Deep inside, he knew he was behaving like a fool. He knew that he was falling into a self-destructive pattern he knew he would probably never be able to set himself free from. Drinks at home were more casual, as were his visits to the nearby bar. Getting hauled in the back of a cab, so drunk that he could barely breathe, was becoming a ritual as were the morning trips to the pharmacy in hopes he'd find something that would magically get rid of hangovers.   
  
But most of the time, he worked.   
  
He read so much information on alien cults, so many abduction cases, and so much alternate life literature that at one point he was scared he had read so much, that he'd forget how to read. Some days he found himself being a little receptive to these alternate ideas. Other days he's angrily close the books and throw them away, taking his keys and heading out for another search.   
  
But no matter how much John opened his mind, it seemed like every step forward was met by someone or something that forced him to take three steps back.   
  
Brad Follmer was not making matters any easier. In fact, of the three steps John had to take back, two of them were Brad's doing. Every time they bumped into each other down the hall, Brad would give him a look or make a comment that made John want to push the man against a wall and play percussions with Brad's teeth. Miraculously, either Skinner or Scully were always around and they were able to coax him into ignoring Brad's comments. He found it extremely difficult to expand the investigation, particularly because every time he asked for assistance on the case, Brad would deem it unnecessary, claiming that this alien theory was a load of bullshit and he'd never be able to find Monica this way.   
  
He had been thinking of taking a leave of absence. Brad was not the only person making his daily trips to the bureau extremely unbearable. As the resident skeptic, he had always been able to hide behind Scully or Monica, and never once had to worry about looks or gossip. But with his partner gone, and the abduction theory spreading around the bureau like an airborne virus, he had found himself walking in different shoes. He had gone from the partner of the whacko, to the whacko; from a respected agent to a joke; from a man to gossip.   
  
If this was the way Monica and Mulder had to live their whole lives, then God bless them, because he was sure one more whisper would send him straight to the local psychiatric center.   
  
He was beginning to wonder how long he could take all of this. He was trying to walk along the edge without falling down. He was sure no human being, strong or weak, would be able to live in a split second, waiting for that one phone call that would put an end to this chapter of his life. That was all it would take. One phone call. 'We found the body.' Just like that. One second, maybe two. And then he'd fall.   
  
And he'd probably keep falling for the rest of his life.   
  
---   
  
It was a quiet night when he found himself hunched over his desk. A woman had been kidnapped in North Carolina and the bureau had reason to believe her case and Monica's were connected. But as John read the case file over and over, he failed to see the link. The woman who had been kidnapped in North Carolina had been known for causing troubles with the law. The people who were close to her were absolutely certain that the case was drug related. Two hours later, when the Charlotte officials called to let him know the woman had been found dead, and her ex-boyfriend had confessed to the murder, he closed the file and stood up to push his chair forward and slam it against his desk with a bam.   
  
John couldn't dare look at the clock hanging on the wall behind him, but the fact that nearly everyone in the bureau had left hours before was indication that it was very late at night. He grabbed Monica's thin case file from his desk and reached for his jacket to head home.   
  
Sleep deprivation was causing his vision to blur and he was having hard time trying to differentiate step from step as he made his way down the stairwell. Halfway through, he debated weather he should drive around for at least an hour to see if he could find something or go home. When he took a misstep and almost fell down the stairs, he decided maybe it would be best to go home instead.   
  
The garage was so empty, quiet, and dark that he could hear his own steady heartbeat. Sleep deprivation wasn't a good friend to memory either, and so he found himself trying to remember where he had left his car. He thought maybe from then on he would have to write these things down so that he wouldn't have to spend three hours walking around the bureau's garage only to realize he had taken a cab.   
  
But lady luck was on his side and he quickly spotted his car not too far from the entrance. It was almost funny. On his way to the bureau, he always prayed for a parking spot near the stairwell, and the one day he had gotten a hold of one, he didn't even notice.   
  
As he reached for the car keys inside his pocket, he thought he saw a shadow move near his car. Blaming the hallucinations to the lack of sleep, he decided to stand there for a moment in case he wasn't just seeing things. Sure enough, a couple of seconds later, he heard some movement.   
  
He quickly reached for his gun.   
  
"Who's there?"   
  
Silence.   
  
"Come out with your hands in the air!"   
  
When no one replied, and there was no movement, he thought maybe it was a cat or a rat. But, equally cautious, he took slow steps towards his car.   
  
His body jumped slightly when a young man sprinted from the shadows and began to run. Adrenaline immediately took over John's body and he found himself running after the man.   
  
"Federal Agent, stop where you are!" John shouted, but the man didn't even look back.   
  
John put his gun back on the holster when he realized he could probably catch his intruder, and as when he was barely a couple of feet behind the man, he jumped on top of him. It didn't take much strength to grab the man by the lapels of his jacket and throw him against the nearest wall.   
  
"The hell do you think you're doin' near my car?" John barked in the man's face.   
  
The man squirmed and tried to get away, but John held him in place against the wall, maybe with a little too much force.   
  
"Who are you?"   
  
The man still wouldn't talk and it seemed more like he'd start to cry. In a moment of hesitation, John looked down and noticed the intruder had something in his hand. He reached for his handcuffs and wrapped the man's wrist with them. When he was sure he wouldn't have to chase after him again, John reached for what seemed like a small piece of paper that read,   
  
Tuesday, May 26th   
1:00 am   
Alley in K St between 21st and 22nd.   
Come alone.   
  
He looked up at the man with a frown. "Who gave you this?"   
  
The man tried to run away again but John held him in place. "Were you puttin' this in my car? Is that what you were doing?"   
  
The man finally gave up and dropped his head.   
  
"Why? Who gave you this?" John asked in anger. He never did like secrecy.   
  
But the only reply he got was more silence.   
  
John only stared at the man. He couldn't have been older than 25, even though he looked as if experience had forced him to age. John tried everything he could to get some information from his captive, but he quickly realized the man wouldn't cooperate.   
  
And so an hour later, he stood outside the interrogating room as Scully walked a quick pace in his direction, looking tired and sleepy, but mostly weary.   
  
She finally stood next to him and looked inside the interrogating room in confusion, then up at John. "Are you okay?"   
  
"Yeah," he replied.   
  
"Who is he?" Scully asked.   
  
"He won't say," John replied.   
  
"He won't say?" she repeated after him.   
  
"I doubt he knows anything, looks like he's just a messenger," he said and looked over at her, and when he noticed she didn't understand anything he was saying, he motioned for her to follow him. When they reached his office in the basement, he made sure no one had been following and locked the door for the first time since he had worked there.   
  
"I found this on 'im," John said and handed Scully the piece of paper.   
  
She read it and then looked up at him. "What does it mean?"   
  
"I don't know," John said.   
  
"Did you show it to Follmer?"   
  
"And have him push me out of the investigation? No way," John said.   
  
"But maybe he knows what it means. Maybe he can-" she wanted to continue, but John was already shaking his head. And so she let out a sigh and tried to approach the subject from a different angle. "Are you going to go?"   
  
"Yeah," he replied.   
  
"John," she sighed. "I don't think I even have the words to let you know how foolish this is."   
  
"Maybe, but whoever sent me this may know something about Monica, maybe something that'll help me find her."   
  
"I know, John. But," Scully shook her head as she tried to gather her thoughts. "You don't know who sent you this. It could be a prank, but it could also be very dangerous."   
  
"I'll take my gun," he replied.   
  
"I don't think you understand how complicated this is, John," she said, raising her voice. "You're putting your life at risk."   
  
"And if I don't go we're risking Monica's," John replied.   
  
She let her arms fall to the side with a sigh and stared at him for a second or two. "You should at least ask Skinner for assistance."   
  
"I tell Skinner about this note and he's gonna tell Kersh, who will tell Follmer and then I'm out, Dana. He's been looking for an excuse to get me out of his way since Monica disappeared. He finds out about this one and I'm out," John said.   
  
Scully could only stare at him, mouth opened. He didn't seem to hesitate at all, and if he had any doubt about this, he wasn't showing it. She would expect this from Mulder, but from John? "If this person meant well, John, then there would be no need for all this anonymity. Are you willing to risk your life for something that could turn out to be nothing?"   
  
He nodded without a second thought.   
  
She didn't react much, just stared down at the piece of paper and seemed to think it over for a second. Then she looked up at him, gave him the note, and began to walk out of the office.   
  
He followed her with his eyes, hands resting on his hips. "You know what I don't understand?" he asked and watched as she stopped at the door, hand on the knob.   
  
"I don't understand how the FBI is missing one of its best agents and they're doin' nothing to find her. I don't understand how every time we get closer to the truth we have to step back because it's too dangerous, or because I may or may not end up dead. Now we have a lead, something that might help us find Monica, and you want me to brush it aside."   
  
"That is not what I'm saying," she replied. "I just think-"   
  
"Do you think this is a joke? Do you think Monica's gonna walk through that door tomorrow morning like nothing happened? If that was Mulder missing you wouldn't think twice about any of this, you'd be there in a second and nothing anyone would say or do would stop you."   
  
Low blow, she knew that, but decided to let it go. "You're comparing apples to oranges, John."   
  
He knew he wasn't walking on firm ground, so he decided not to touch the Mulder subject. "I care about my partner, Dana, enough to take risks for her safety. And if I die tryin' to find her, so be it."   
  
He didn't wait before she replied to walk out of the office. Scully kept staring at a spot on the floor as he did so and then sighed. She knew his anger was a product of Monica's disappearance and not directed at her. But being his little stress ball was beginning to leave a strain on her.   
  
---   
  
On May 26th, at one am sharp, John parked his car on the corner of K Street. He unsnapped his seatbelt and looked around the area. The street was practically deserted, except for a homeless man who slept in a bench not too far from John's car.   
  
He locked the door and touched the side of his hip to make sure his gun was still in the holster. John could feel the blood rushing through his veins and his pulse was racing so fast he could feel the way the vein pushed the skin up every half a second. Sure enough, there was an alley not too far from where he had parked. Under other circumstances, he would have picked up his phone to call for assistance. He knew Scully was right, this was completely irrational, but he had no other choice. He knew that if he called for backup, the person, or persons, waiting for him would leave. He also knew that if he took the wrong step, Monica would pay for it.   
  
On the way over, it occurred to him this person may want money, a ransom. But ransoms are usually asked for right after the kidnapping, not two weeks later. He had tried to think of any other reason why this person wanted to meet him in an alley at one am, but decided it would be best to find out for himself. He was afraid that if he started thinking things over, he'd talk himself out of it.   
  
The alley was darker than he had expected, and had an acrid smell of garbage. He couldn't see anyone or anything suspicious, but he reached for his gun anyway. The alley continued into another dark street, and John kept walking until he could see a car idling. But there didn't seem to be anyone nearby. Suddenly something moved to his side and he pointed his gun in that direction, but as he looked down, he saw a huge rat scurrying away.   
  
He lowered his gun, approaching the car slowly. The windows were tinted, the car painted black, and its lights out.   
  
Suddenly the back window rolled down and he quickly drew his gun again.   
  
"Hello?" John asked, but no one replied.   
  
A tingling sensation traveled up and down his spine, letting him know something was wrong. But before he could react, a gun peeked its way out the car window, and the last thing he felt was the impact of bullet against skin and mixed sounds between screeching tires and his head hitting the pavement. It all happened in a heartbeat.   
  
The rest was black.   
  
  
To be continued… 


	5. Terra Firma, Part 5

Title: Terra Firma   
Author: Carolina   
Category: DRR UST, DSF   
Rating: PG-13   
Author's notes: I have a lot of work in school right now, it's killing me, so please give me a break over here. Asking me if the next part is done 20 times a day is just frustrating, it doesn't make me write faster. I'm not getting paid for this (unless you all want to send me a cheque) so please give me time to breathe. I also write long parts so I don't have to send out a chapter a day; this one is 21 pages long. That being said, enjoy. I am always working on the next part, but keep in mind I have more important things to do, graduating from college being one of them.   


  
-TERRA FIRMA 5- 

  
The nightmare was back.   
  
John was back in the field, somewhere in time, standing still in the countryside of the past. Men dressed as cops and detectives surrounded a small portion of the field, forming a circle. And he stood there, reliving the scene that had been tormenting him for nine years. He knew it was a dream, he had it often. But this time, something was different.   
  
Monica wasn't there.   
  
He walked over slowly, knowing what he would find: the dead body of his son. The emotions hadn't changed with time. They still gave him a stomach ache, and he felt that lightheadedness that back then made him believe it was all a nightmare.   
  
But he knew it was real. He knew it then and he knew it now.   
  
Only this time, the cops didn't leave as he approached the body. They kept looking down, and for a moment John thought that would be an opportunity to flee, but he couldn't. He had to see him. He had to see his boy, put an end to this nightmare.   
  
Like a curtain, some of the men moved to the side. John closed his eyes to say one last prayer, but when he opened them, his body grew cold and stiff.   
  
Luke wasn't there. Monica was.   
  
Her lifeless body lay face down on the ground; in the same position Luke had been found. John tried to reach down to her, but he couldn't move. His body was bound, and as hard as he tried to move his legs and arms, they refused to. He could feel his heart beating wildly against his chest, making it almost impossible to breathe.   
  
Suddenly, one of the men knelt down to touch Monica's body, and when John looked to his side, he realized the cops surrounding him weren't men. One of them stared at him with big black eyes and gray skin, and suddenly a mantle of white blurred his face.   
  
This time, when his body jerked forward as he woke up, his gasp was accompanied by a sharp pain on the side of his stomach.   
  
With a wince, he put his hand over the wound to come in contact with a bandage. He looked down at it; it was stained slightly with blood, and that triggered a memory of the events of the previous night.   
  
John was glad the nightmare was over, but nonetheless, an irritated sigh escaped his lungs. His head was pounding, and when he brought his hand up to stroke his face, he felt a bump on the side of his forehead.   
  
Pushing aside the sheets that covered his body, he looked at his surroundings, only to frown at the realization that he was in a strange room and laying in a bed that wasn't his own. A slight sense of panic washed over him when he thought, for a moment, that whoever had shot him had kidnapped him as well. He thought that if that was the case, then maybe Monica was around as well. But before he could get to his feet to go find her, the door opened.   
  
John was half glad, yet half disappointed, to see Scully walk into the room. He took a breath and stared as she approached him with a serious expression on her face. He guessed she was still mad at him for the way he treated her the last time he saw her and that made him feel guilty. But mostly he was confused.   
  
Scully threw all rules of courtesy away as she approached him and without permission, she removed the bandage and checked on the wound. "Does it hurt?"   
  
It hurt like hell, especially when she mercilessly ripped the tape off his skin. But he didn't even flinch. "Not much."   
  
"It's just a scratch, you were lucky."   
  
John looked down at it. An ugly laceration spread around five inches on his side. He had been shot before, but not like this. Usually the bullets went in and out. What the hell happened? "Where are we?"   
  
"Skinner's," Scully replied. "I called him last night."   
  
John suddenly wanted to crawl into a hole. And from deep within, he could only look up at her and mutter, "'M sorry."   
  
Scully looked at him as she folded a blanket. She considered his words for a moment, but remained quiet. The silence was excruciating, and she knew it was even more so to him. So she didn't say anything. It was the only punishment she could carry out without actually hurting him physically.   
  
Moments passed, and when she opened her mouth to say something, Skinner walked into the room with a less than pleased look on his face. John felt as if he was on display, and watched as Skinner stood next to Scully, hands resting on his hips, and both of them looking down at him as if he was a lab rat in an experiment that had gone terribly wrong.   
  
"How is he?" Skinner asked.   
  
"He's doin' fine," John replied, and regretted it immediately.   
  
"Agent Doggett, after last night's foolishness, the best thing you can do right now is keep your mouth shut. We're all doing our best to find Agent Reyes, but you behaving as an incorrigible child is not helping anybody."   
  
Apologizing seemed patronizing and redundant, so John fell prey to silence. Unfortunately, Skinner didn't seem to have the same plan.   
  
"You should probably get on your knees and thank us, because if it wasn't for Agent Scully right now you'd be laying in a hospital bed with Brad Follmer standing at the end of an angry Foley Catheter."   
  
That was actually damn funny, and it made John feel a little more at ease. But he suddenly felt guilty for the comfort. It was an emotion he would not allow himself to feel until he found Monica.   
  
"Did you see a license plate?" Skinner asked, reaching for a pad inside his suit and finding a pen on top of a dresser.   
  
"No," John replied.   
  
"Did you see anybody? The driver?"   
  
John shook his head, suddenly depressed by what Skinner described perfectly when he called it a 'foolishness'.   
  
"It was a white… person," John suddenly said.   
  
"A white person in a black car," Skinner grumbled. He took in a deep breath and let it out in a long hiss to dramatize the situation.   
  
And suddenly the AD looked like a volcano about to explode, but took a couple more seconds to calm himself down. John knew there were a thousand other things his boss wanted to say to him, a couple of ugly words among them. But to his luck, the older man put the pad back inside the pockets of his jacket and pinched the bridge of his nose for a couple of seconds.   
  
"I have to go back to work," he finally said. "I told Kersh you took a sick day, but bright and early on Monday."   
  
"Yes, sir," John replied. He didn't look up to see his boss walk out of the room; he didn't even look up when it was just him and Scully.   
  
When he did, he noticed she was still folding the same blanket she had been working on before Skinner walked in. He knew she wasn't going to take the first step, so he swung his feet over the edge of the bed and apologized for letting his feelings get the better of his judgment. And to his surprise, she apologized for letting the voice of reason get the better of hers.   
  
"But I know what you're going through, John. I've been in your shoes tens of times and if what I say sounds crude, bottom line is I am just trying to help."   
  
"I know."   
  
Scully looked down to see her fingers playing with the sheets of the bed. She didn't want to disrupt the balance they had now, but she had to ask. "Are you sure you didn't see something you wanted to keep from Skinner?"   
  
"No," John replied. After a pause he added, "Did you?"   
  
She stared at him for a moment or two, and then shook her head. "But I mean to find out."   
  
"I don't have any enemies, if that's your first question," he said almost cynically.   
  
"It's not."   
  
"And as for why someone would try to kill me-"   
  
She let out some kind of amused sigh as she shook her head while her eyes looked out the window. "Nobody tried to kill you, John."   
  
He raised his eyebrows at her, wordlessly challenging her theory with an indication to his wound.   
  
Scully sat on the bed, finally, as her expression turned serious again. "A five year old boy is playing around the house with his best friend. He goes into his parents' room and finds a gun hidden in a dresser drawer. Five minutes later, his best friend has a hole between his eyes. Last night, a grown person who obviously knows how to use a gun and had a clear shot, left you in an alley with a scratch and a concussion. How plausible do you think that is, John?"   
  
At first he wondered where she was going with this, but it was becoming clearer and clearer with every word. His whole body was suddenly cold. Fuck.   
  
With a big, shiny, capital F.   
  
"Whoever shot you was not trying to kill you. They were trying to give you a warning, trying to scare you away."   
  
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.   
  
"And if you don't listen, next time they may not be so kind," Scully finished.   
  
Confusion was probably the worst feeling while you were working on an important case. It crept into the room now and John had the feeling it would stay with him for a while. This was already too big a case. And it kept getting bigger with every second that went by. John wondered just how long he could take all of this. Three days was one thing, three weeks was another. Even though Luke's kidnapping had been the most excruciating time, morbidly, he was half glad that it was done and over in three days. He had known of parents whose children had been gone for years. During that time, they had fallen into an emotional commotion they had never really had the chance to get out of.   
  
He was feeling that commotion now. When he answered the phone to learn about Monica's disappearance, his mind somehow told him that it was okay. It was alright. This was probably a misunderstanding, a mistake on Skinner's part. Monica had probably gone off on a long drive and the car they had found wasn't hers. And when he got down there and saw the scene with his own eyes, it was still alright, because he knew they would find her by the end of the day. But suddenly one day turned into two, and two into three. In a blink of an eye a week had gone by, then two, now three. And if that wasn't enough, someone was trying to keep him from finding Monica. It wasn't just frustrating and nerve-wrecking. It was pure torture.   
  
Scully stared at him as he raked his hair all the way back to the back of his neck, the sign of a desperate man on the brink of losing all self-control.   
  
"Why?" he finally asked, searching her eyes for some kind of answer. They didn't tell him anything, so he hoped her words would.   
  
"Well, somebody obviously wants you out of the case," Scully said matter-of-factly.   
  
John's mind immediately searched for hundreds of names that might top that list. People who wanted him out of the case? "Brad Follmer?"   
  
Scully shook her head. "I don't think so. He has feelings for Monica. Even if he hates you, his main focus point right now is finding her. He may not like our theory, but he knows that we have a better chance of finding her than he does."   
  
John let out what sounded like a hybrid between a moan and a grunt. He was kind of hoping it would be Brad Follmer. Going against the AD was easier than going against a ghost.   
  
Scully kept looking at him and could recognize the confusion in his eyes. It wasn't really that hard; the same confusion had once been hers to host. She looked at the clock resting on a night stand and then at her watch to verify the time. "Go home, John. There's not much we can do right now."   
  
By now, John's breathing was a little labored. "Who are you thinkin' of?"   
  
The question, while fair and legitimate, took her by surprise. At this point, she didn't think speculating was a very good idea, especially if her theories were wrong. Years of working alongside Mulder gave her a sixth sense about these kinds of things. If she told John about the predictability of the situation, she didn't know how he'd react. Somehow she knew it wouldn't be too pretty. He needed this anonymity because it boosted his determination. Monica didn't have the luxury of having John give up on her. Scully didn't either.   
  
So she shook her head and replied, "I don't know." He was disappointed with her answer, but at the moment, that was all she could give him.   
  
"I have a class in an hour," she added, clearing away some of the somber mood. "Are you going to be okay?"   
  
"Yeah," John said.   
  
John Doggett was really predictable, and equally obsessive, especially with this case. But mostly he was a bad liar. "John, please go home. Don't do anything stupid."   
  
"I won't," he said.   
  
"I hope so, because Skinner is going to call you later to make sure you're at home."   
  
That actually made him mad. He didn't like being babysat. But he didn't show it. "Okay."   
  
He could have pinky sworn over it, given her his word or promised her the unattainable, but Scully knew the last place John would go to was home.   
  
He kept his eyes on her as she walked out of the room, and when he heard the main door shut, he stood up and began to search for his clothes. He found his pants spread over a chair, along with one of Skinner's shirts and as he put them on he heard his keys jingling from inside his jacket. He tried to lay the bed neatly, maybe clean a little of the mess he had made, but his concentration wasn't set on impressing Skinner. He found a basket of fruit on the kitchen table and grabbed an apple. When he walked out, his car was waiting by the curb.   
  
Going to Monica's apartment was now more of an involuntary reaction than a decision. He knew it was irrational behavior, but he knew it was easier to succumb to it than fight it. The same behavior had him checking every corner of her apartment for at least a molecule of a clue. And when he found nothing, he would go home and come back the next day, as if in his absence, someone would come in and plant some evidence. It was a compulsive obsession he wasn't sure when exactly it had found him, or when it would leave. He could remember meeting it nine years before when Luke had been kidnapped. Now he wasn't sure it had ever really left him.   
  
When he had nothing else to do, he'd clean. The landlord was beginning to get irritated at the uninhabited apartment because there was a couple interested in it, but John refused to let it go. So he kept paying Monica's rent, along with every one of her bills. Sometimes, when irrationality was at its worst, he'd find himself going to the market to buy some milk, because if Monica came back tonight, she'd need milk. Maybe a bigger disappointment was coming back five days later to find the milk had gone sour.   
  
Her small mailbox sat at the lobby, untouched. John's wound was beginning to throb as the effects of whatever pain killers Scully had given him wore off, but he ignored that as he made his way up the stairs. The floors seemed quieter than usual, except for that same soap opera that the lady in 1B seemed to turn on every day at twelve. He knew her by name, as he knew every tenant in the building. Some of them would call during the week to ask if they had found Monica. But most would close their doors and pretend they weren't home when John made his weekly rounds to see if they had noticed something strange around the building.   
  
Another one of madness' tricks.   
  
Today, he seemed to be more tired than ever when he finally found himself on Monica's floor. But he couldn't linger on that feeling for long, because his eyes quickly focused on a shadow standing in front of her door. It didn't take him long to realize the man was trying to pick the lock, it took him even less time to recognize the man as Michael Bonsall.   
  
"Hey!" John yelled as his feet stumbled forward. In a matter of seconds, Bonsall looked at him with wide, scared eyes, and then sprinted toward the stairs on the other side of the floor.   
  
John's legs seemed to be more aware of the situation than his brain, because they were already at the door to the stairs. He peeked over the hand rail; Bonsall was one floor ahead of him, and John's yells didn't seem to scare Bonsall any more than they scared him.   
  
When he made it to the ground floor, the trespasser tried to open the emergency door, but it didn't give in. He looked up at John for a second or two and then ran in the opposite direction, down a hallway that led to the front desk.   
  
John jumped the last four steps, but when he made a U turn to continue running, the side of his stomach hit the hand rail of the steps. He almost fell down, letting out a wince and then a grunt, and his hand went over the wound for a second, but he continued to run.   
  
The light of the day was suddenly blinding, but just for a second, and his eyes quickly adjusted to see a shadow round a corner. John ran in that direction, but when he came around it, he saw a car screech down the street. People calmly walked the sidewalks as if nothing had happen, and John knew that asking them was probably futile.   
  
So he rested his hands on his knees as he caught his breath, and instinctively, his hand went over to the side of his stomach. There was wetness there, and when he looked down he saw blood percolating through the fabric of the shirt, giving it a dark purple color.   
  
A young couple walked over, with their eyes stuck on Skinner's blood stained shirt. The guy opened his eyes wide and inched closer. "Jesus, man! Are you okay?"   
  
"Uh-huh," John replied.   
  
"You're bleeding," the girl said.   
  
"No shit, Mindy," her boyfriend replied.   
  
"Don't you start with me now," she said through clenched teeth.   
  
"I'm alright, thank you," John said. The couple didn't go away, but he began to walk back towards the building.   
  
"Seriously, man. My car is right over there, hospital's not too far away."   
  
"I'll be alright," John added, this time a little crudely to see if they'd get the hint. "Thank you."   
  
"All right, man," the young man said. "Take it easy."   
  
John could feel their eyes burning holes into his back, but he ignored that as he climbed the stairs back into Monica's apartment. Although the main lock looked like it had been picked, the inside of the apartment appeared to be exactly how he had left it two days ago.   
  
Then he cussed and cursed at his stupidity. He had known it from the start. John knew the reason Bonsall played all those riddles with him was that he was in on this. From the start. And he had made a fool out of John. With another capital F.   
  
He took a moment to control his anger, and when he finally did, he found a bottle of aspirin in the kitchen and gulped two with a glass of tap water. While he walked down her small hallway, he made a mental note to tell the landlord to change the locks.   
  
Inside the bathroom, John took his shirt off to asses the damage. The bandage was soaked with blood and sure enough, some of the stitches were now open. Not too bad, but it was bleeding like there was no tomorrow. He opened the cabinet that also served as a mirror and was relieved to find a first aid kit inside. He still remembered her coaxing him into stealing it from the bureau when she had cut her finger cooking. He opened it up and hundreds of little gadgets fell into the sink; she had barely used the things inside.   
  
It was almost disturbing, how much they had worked to make her apartment safe and yet she was taken away a couple of yards from it. After a man had broken into Scully's apartment and almost killed William and Mrs. Scully, he showed up at Monica's apartment with a tool kit and a smile. He had obsessively installed the locks to her door, bars in some of the windows and even a simple alarm system, an idea she deemed as ridiculous, because having an alarm system in an apartment building was suddenly something "geeky", as she had referred to it.   
  
"John, this is insane!" she protested. "There are dozens of other apartments they can get to before mine, and I sleep with my gun under the pillow."   
  
"You're a single woman livin' alone in a big city, Monica. Any guy can sneak in and do God knows what before you get a chance to react."   
  
"I live in an apartment building, John."   
  
"So does Agent Scully, and I don't have to tell 'ya how many times she's been clunked over the head by some big guy," John said.   
  
"Do you have any idea how sexist that sounds?" Monica said in what sounded like an angry tone, but was mostly irritated; as she let her hands fall heavily on her hips.   
  
"Sexist or not, you don't wanna take any chances. D'you know a lot of rapes take place in the victim's homes?"   
  
She didn't reply to that, so he found her with his eyes and watched her face turn into an angry frown. So he winked at her and smiled, "C'mon, Monica. You'd do the same for me."   
  
"Actually, right now the thought of a big man violently having his way with you is just comforting."   
  
He chuckled at the bittersweet memory, but then chastised himself. Monica wasn't a memory. And he wouldn't turn her into one either.   
  
John had bargained with her until they agreed to get rid of the alarm, but keep the locks and bars. Looking back at it, it seemed no less irrational than his daily trips to Monica's in the present. He couldn't really explain that behavior either. After Luke's death and his divorce, he distanced himself from the people he cared about. Loving is wonderful, he knew that. Losing that love was not a chance he was sure he could take. But Monica had consistently been there. For nine years, she was probably the only friend he had. Crossing that line from acquaintance to friendship was not something he had been planning on. He had tried to keep his distance after that happened, but no matter how far he'd run, somehow Monica was always there. If he couldn't isolate himself from her, then he had to make sure they'd never say goodbye. For Christ's sake, this was Monica. She was practically surgically attacked to him. How on earth would he ever be able to survive if she wasn't there?   
  
As he cleaned the wound with stinging alcohol, he stared at the contents of her cabinet. Two bottles of strawberry scented shaving cream sat facing him, and another two bottles of bubble bath next to them. So Monica.   
  
Standing here, among her things, gave him an eerie feeling he couldn't explain. It was as if she was still there. If he was in the bathroom, he could close his eyes and almost hear her in another room. Not just sounds, but smells too. Three weeks had gone by and the place still smelled like her, no matter how many times he washed covers and sheets. It was a comforting feeling, but also haunting.   
  
When the wound was clean, he threw the dirty bandage away and found a new one. He also buttoned his jacket so that no one would notice the blood. Leaving the apartment was something he never looked forward too, but this time it wasn't half bad. He was lucky to find the landlord in the basement, and when John informed him of the intruder trying to pick the lock, the older man didn't really seem that interested. Maybe those sorts of things had happened before in the area, but John thought it was mostly because the man was beginning to get tired of hearing him complain.   
  
But he agreed to change the lock, only one. John was a little irritated but thanked him nonetheless and when he walked out of the building, the same young kids that were worried about him earlier were now making out inside their car. John shook his head and climbed into his own, feeling the open edges of his wound rub against each other when he sat. It was more annoying than painful, he had had his share of wounds in the past, but he hoped the aspirin would kick in soon. He noticed the gas gauge was near Empty, so he turned the engine on and drove to the nearest gas station.   
  
------   
  
Dozens of enthusiastic students made their way out of the academy as John made his way in. He didn't know Scully's schedule, but somehow, after driving around while contemplating what to do, he had ended up in Quantico. She was the only person he could go to at the moment; she was probably the only person he could trust. He needed her for guidance and support, because at the moment he wasn't sure what was up or what was down.   
  
He found her walking down the hallway towards him, her eyes glued to some papers she carried in her hand.   
  
"Agent Scully?"   
  
Scully looked up immediately, expecting to see another curious student, but found John there instead. She didn't like that disturbingly confused look on his face.   
  
"What is it?" she asked.   
  
"Can we talk?"   
  
She looked at her watch, and then guided John towards the Professor's lounge. There, John took off his jacket, and Scully's eyes widened to the size of oranges when she saw the blood on the side of Skinner's shirt.   
  
"What happened?" she asked.   
  
"I had a little run in with Bonsall," John replied.   
  
Scully made him sit down on a chair and unbuttoned his shirt again to inspect the wound, this time removing the bandage carefully. "Monica's neighbor?"   
  
"He was tryin' to sneak into her apartment," he explained.   
  
"Why?" she asked.   
  
"That's what I'd like to know."   
  
"Did you call the police?" Scully asked.   
  
John shook his head. "I don't know if I should. I wanted to ask you first."   
  
There was nothing inside the lounge that Scully could take care of the wound with, so she taped the bandage back on, and rested her hands on her hips to look at him. After a moment, she said, "We have to tell someone."   
  
John let out a sigh. "What if Follmer finds out?" John asked.   
  
Scully shrugged her shoulders. "Then he finds out."   
  
"And takes the case away from me," John replied somewhat angrily. "We're not telling him."   
  
That seemed to irritate Scully a little bit, and she let out a sigh of frustration as she looked to her side, and then at him. "John, if you're going to butt heads with Brad Follmer, do it because he really is being antagonistic. But don't turn this into a pissing contest; who can rescue Monica first and become the hero."   
  
That hurt. It actually hurt more than the wound. But right now he couldn't afford alienating Scully again. So he didn't react the way he wanted to. Lucky for him, she changed the topic.   
  
"We should at least tell Skinner," she said. "I know you don't trust him fully, but I do."   
  
John nodded without saying a word.   
  
"And if we want to find Bonsall maybe we should alert the authorities," Scully added.   
  
"I'm gonna go talk to his landlord, maybe he knows something," John said.   
  
"Good," Scully sighed. A bell rang, and she looked at her watch. "I have another class. Can you meet me at my apartment in an hour or so? I don't know if I can close that wound again, but I don't want it to get infected."   
  
John nodded again.   
  
Scully stared at him. Warning him about getting into another mess was useless, so she smiled faintly and walked out of the room.   
  
John buttoned his shirt as another professor walked into the room. He really didn't have time to acknowledge her, but watched as she made a surprised face at the blood on his shirt.   
  
Outside, the hallways were isolated, and as he made his way outside, he noticed the sun was gone and it looked like it would rain. When he parked in front of Monica's building, drops of water were pouring slightly from the dark clouds. He had forgotten his umbrella, as usual, so he let the rain refresh his skin as he ran to the building next to Monica's.   
  
John looked at the panel outside of the apartment building to see if there even was a landlord on the site, and luckily he found his office in the basement. The door was partly open, but he knocked on it slightly.   
  
"I told you, the plumbing will be fixed as soon as the new pipes come in!" the landlord shouted.   
  
John opened the door fully, watching as an overweight man ate from a box of Krispy Kreme donuts and played a round of computer solitaire. He looked up at John and frowned. "Who the hell are you?"   
  
"Agent John Doggett; I'm with the FBI," John answered as he showed the man his badge.   
  
"FBI? What does the FBI want around here?" the man asked as he ignored the tower of napkins in front of him and licked his fingers clean.   
  
"I was hopin' to get some information on one of your tenants, Michael Bonsall," John asked.   
  
The landlord scoffed. "You're FBI, why don't you tell me?"   
  
"'Scuse me?" John asked.   
  
"Michael Bonsall doesn't live here anymore," the man said, finally shutting down the game. "I found his apartment empty two days ago; he didn't even pay the last month of rent either."   
  
"D'you know where he went?" John asked.   
  
"Would I be bitchin' about the money if I did?" the landlord replied.   
  
John let out a sigh of disappointment.   
  
"What'd he do?"   
  
"Nothing," John replied. "Is it possible to look at his apartment?"   
  
"Do I have another choice?" the landlord replied. He reached into a cabinet and threw John a key. "Hey, when you find this bastard, I want my 800 bucks."   
  
"Thanks, I'll put that in my list of priorities," John said sarcastically and walked out of the office. The key was greasy with chocolate oil and John cleaned it off by rubbing it against his suit jacket. He pushed on the elevator button a couple of times, because he was suddenly too tired to walk up or down steps. After a couple of minutes, the elevator arrived and John pushed the number two to go up. When he made it to the second floor, the older lady they had met not too long ago was waiting. John smiled at her slightly, but she didn't seem to remember him.   
  
Bonsall's apartment was at the end of the hall, almost hidden between a corner and the fire exit. John used the key to open the door, and sure enough, as soon as he stepped in he noticed the apartment was completely empty. He tried to turn on the lights but the electricity had already been taken off. So he relied on the cloudy day to illuminate the rooms. But even if the sun had been pouring through the windows, John wouldn't have been able to find something, because the apartment had been cleared off every single molecule of dust. He opened cabinets and drawers, but there was nothing inside of them. So John walked down the small hallway and he noticed the plumbing was surely old, because drops of filthy water dripped from the bathroom sink.   
  
When he walked into the bedroom, he tried to turn on the lights, only to remember nothing was working. A mirror hung from one of the walls and John approached it, but it was spotless. He let out a sigh as he stood in the middle of an empty room.   
  
He looked to his side, and noticed some drapes had been left to cover the single window. So he walked over and pushed them to the side only to frown at the sight. Bonsall's window looked straight into Monica's bedroom.   
  
------   
  
An hour later, John sat on Scully's couch, staring straight ahead. Thoughts had been racing through his mind so furiously that they quickly made way for a migraine. And that, in turn, left him thoughtless.   
  
Scully walked into the room with a kit and he suddenly wondered why she would have medical instruments in her apartment. Wordlessly, she made him lay down as she tried to seal the wound again. It had dried up and it would definitely scar.   
  
As she worked on the wound, she tried to coax him into going to the hospital to avoid infection, but he argued that if and when it got infected, then he'd go to the emergency room.   
  
She didn't reply to that but kept staring up at him; his eyes were fixed on a spot on the far wall. "We have to tell Kersh, John," Scully said. "This is important."   
  
"I know," John sighed. "But he's probably out of the state by now and ten bucks say Michael Bonsall isn't his real name either."   
  
Scully knew what he was thinking. She felt guilty too for letting Bonsall go. But he had never really been a suspect. Something told her that he really wasn't involved in Monica's abduction either. Bonsall's presence in the case seemed to be the result of something else. Maybe he knew her. Maybe he had helped her in the case. Whatever it was, Scully had only seen fear in Bonsall's eyes. Not evil.   
  
"We'll start a search immediately, he won't get far," she said.   
  
"I should have known," John said.   
  
"There's no way anyone would have known," she replied. "So don't do this to yourself again. Go home and get some sleep. I'll call Skinner first thing in the morning."   
  
John remained quiet, unable to wrap his brain around the previous day's events. When Scully finished him up, she offered him some food, but John declined. He grabbed his coat and thanked her for the medical care. She smiled as he walked out, and suddenly the drizzle of rain had turned into a storm. He ran towards his car, and as if it had been in auto pilot, it took him home without John even knowing how.   
  
He noticed now he had forgotten to turn all the lights off two nights ago and that meant he'd be getting a hell of a bill, but he'd deal with it when it came in the mail. He turned them all off as he headed toward his bedroom, and he didn't even bother to change before his body hit the mattress. Sleep found him easily that night.   
  
His head turned towards the window and he watched as small drops of water raced each other down the crystal. When he closed his eyes and opened them again, it was noon. The clouds had been cleared away and the lonely sun was shining in the blue sky. His body ached all the way to his toes, but he still stood up to get changed and drink some tea.   
  
And then he suddenly remembered he had never called Monica's parents the day before. He thought over and over of what he would say, surely finding out Bonsall was probably involved was good news, a breakthrough. He hated lying to them, or exaggerating the facts. But he also couldn't bear being the one who always had to report the lack of news.   
  
But he picked up the phone and dialed the hotel number. After a couple of rings, Clara picked it up. Same news: nothing yet. Same reaction: disappointment. Clara passed the phone to Gabriel and as they talked, John noticed something different in their voices. It had been a gradual change, but he noticed it today more than ever before. There was a tone of resignation in both of them, as if they were beginning to lose hope. He tried to interrupt Gabriel to tell them something that might make that tone disappear even if he had to make up a lie, but Gabriel never paused.   
  
"We have to go, John," he said.   
  
"Alright, I'll call you-"   
  
"No," Gabriel interrupted. "We have to go back to Mexico."   
  
John's body stiffened. "What?"   
  
Gabriel explained that he had to attend his business, and that even if he could have someone work for him, they were starting to run out of money. John tried to convince them to stay with him, where they didn't have to spend another cent. But Gabriel declined.   
  
"I can't believe you're giving up on this," John said angrily.   
  
"We're not giving up, John," Gabriel replied calmly.   
  
"The hell you are!" John replied. "I told you I'd find her; I AM going to find her. I-"   
  
"We know you are, John," Gabriel said. "But there are circumstances-"   
  
"Bullshit!"   
  
"John!" Gabriel said sternly, almost like a father scolding his son.   
  
John let out a sigh of frustration. His breathing was labored and his pulse was racing. He looked around the kitchen. Somehow everything seemed surreal, as if he was having one of those nightmares where he found Monica dead. Maybe it was. Maybe.   
  
When their tension had vanished, Gabriel began, "If you want us to stay, John."   
  
"No, it's," John sighed, releasing some of the anger, but not enough. "'M sorry. If you have to go, I understand."   
  
A pause between them, a little uncomfortable before Gabriel confessed, "It's just hard, John, staying here. Days go by and nothing happens. We can't sit by the phone anymore. Clara needs to be with her family, and maybe if I go back to work, maybe it will be better. It's too hard here."   
  
"I know," John said.   
  
There was no need to explain. As fathers, they both understood. "We will call you tomorrow," Gabriel said.   
  
"Okay."   
  
None of them knew what else to say. John agreed to stay home for their phone call and offered to drive them to the airport. Gabriel apologized again; Clara sent her love, and John somberly hung up the phone.   
  
Anger boiled his blood and his arms launched at the toaster, sending it across the kitchen and scattering little parts of it over the floor. His outburst was entirely selfish. He wanted them to stay because they were his backbone, but he had never thought about the way they felt inside. He could imagine it, maybe feel an iota of it because his own son had been taken away as well, but he could never feel half the anguish they felt right now. Their only daughter. Years and years trying to conceive, trying to have something they could lavish their love onto. They had finally found their touchstone when Monica was brought into their lives. And now she had been taken away from them.   
  
John walked to the backyard and sat in a chair he never remembered having bought. After the rain, the sun shone enthusiastically in the sky and John would look up at it for as long as his vision allow, and then again and again.   
  
But being conscious was suddenly too painful for him to bear, so he went back to bed. As he lay there, a thought came into his mind: he had never been so lonely his entire life. Ever.   
  
And even those moments, when he thought he would die from loneliness, the phone would always ring and Monica would merrily greet him from the other side of the line, as if she knew when he needed to hear someone's voice the most. If Monica didn't call, a long lost friend would, or a family member. But the phone always rang.   
  
Monica's parents had given him just that. They always called when he needed a little boost. Gabriel would often talk about something else so that they didn't have to think of Monica and Clara had cooked so much for John, that his refrigerator was filled with frozen food in plastic containers. He had no idea what he would do without them here. John loved these people, and the idea of them leaving broke his heart. But he wouldn't wallow on that feeling now.   
  
His eyes closed lazily and seconds later he was asleep, and for the rest of the weekend he would only get out of bed to go to the bathroom.   
  
----   
  
On Monday morning, John arrived at the bureau two hours too early. The effects of too much sleep were now catching up with him and his whole body screamed for a hot cup of coffee. As the liquid began to brew, he reached inside the file cabinet for all the abduction cases again to see if Bonsall's name appeared in any of them. He put them all on top of his desk and sat down with a steamy mug between his hands. The silence was quickly becoming excruciating.   
  
After drinking a cup, he thought it would be better to find out if Bonsall had changed his name. Maybe he had a previous record and John could find out something about him that would make the search easier. Futile, he thought, because they had probably done that when he had brought him in for custody, yet he wouldn't take any chances. But before his fingertips hit the first key, the phone began to ring.   
  
"John Doggett."   
  
A feminine voice on the other side let him know that Kersh wanted to see him. Jesus, he was beginning to think the older man followed him around with a camera.   
  
"I'll be right there," John said. He hung up the phone, and looked down enticingly at his second cup of coffee. Even the smell made him feel so much better, like he was in a different place. Half a cup was gone, and he gulped the other half before he walked out the door.   
  
The trips to Kersh's office weren't pleasant, but this time he was glad for any excuse that would get him out of that basement office. People were starting to come into work and John nodded to a couple of acquaintances as he made his way to the elevator area. At least 20 agents were already waiting, and John snuck into one of the elevators when its doors opened. So did everyone else. Inside, he rested his head against the elevator wall and looked at his companions. It was quite a comical scene, actually. They all had the newspaper on their right hands and a Starbucks cup on the left. They all read the same article, and they all sipped from their cups of coffee at the same time.   
  
With a ding, the doors opened and everyone scattered. John waited until the elevator was empty to walk out, and as soon as he did, he jumped when Skinner suddenly appeared next to him as if from nowhere.   
  
"Jeez!" John exclaimed.   
  
But Skinner didn't apologize. "I need to talk to you."   
  
"I was just on my way to see Kersh," John replied.   
  
"I know," Skinner said. John didn't move, so he added, "Now."   
  
John looked at him suspiciously, but followed his boss into his office. Inside, Skinner shut the door behind them and walked over. "How's your stomach?"   
  
"What's this about?" John asked.   
  
Skinner grimaced at John's rawness but let it slide. "This meeting with Kersh, I need you to promise you won't lash out.   
  
"What are you talking about?"   
  
Skinner tried to dance around the issue to buy himself some time but that didn't work. He took a short breath and the words left his mouth before he had time to think about it. "They're assigning you a new partner."   
  
John's eyes widened. "What?"   
  
Skinner walked around his desk and sat down. "I wanted to tell you first because I knew how you were going to react. So scream if you want to scream, throw things against the wall. But when you go see Kersh, you need to remain professional."   
  
"They can't do this!" John exclaimed.   
  
"Of course they can. They should have done it weeks ago."   
  
"It's only been three weeks," John argued.   
  
"Only?" Skinner asked. "John, three weeks is a long time, you know that. Do you think the authorities are still interested in the case? There are already rumors around the bureau about Monica being dead. Enough time passes by and she'll become a file in the back of the archive. They're not going to sit around and accommodate to your needs."   
  
"Aw, jeez," John protested. "You can't possibly-"   
  
"John, just go in there and take it. I can't give you a better advice," Skinner said.   
  
John let out a sigh, resting his hands on his hips and looking around. "What about agent Scully? Why can't she be my partner?"   
  
"Agent Scully already has another job," Skinner said. "Look, this may just be temporary. When Agent Reyes comes back, she'll resume her position. But for now, they won't let you work alone."   
  
"And you agreed?"   
  
"It wasn't my decision to make," Skinner replied. He was going to continue, but instead watched as John let out a grunt and walked out of the office, slamming the door behind him.   
  
And then John slammed another door when he stepped into his office. If there was any time to take a leave of absence, this was it. At that point, he was starting to think he didn't need the bureau to find his partner. Kersh nonchalantly told him the news, and as unpleasant as it was, John took them with posture and grace. And then suddenly Kersh was announcing that almost all the police stations around the country just didn't have the time or the men to continue looking for Monica. John had expected that, of course. He always did. But he was hoping Follmer would come through.   
  
So he sat on his chair and stared at the computer screen. He thought of calling Scully, but he knew she'd most likely be teaching a class. So he picked up one of the new files and read its contents. When he finished, he picked up another one, and another one. More incredulous crap; monsters, cults, ghosts, and vampires. He suddenly felt like a pot of boiling water violently trying to push the lid off.   
  
Hours passed as he sat there, and when he decided to leave early, a soft knock on the door caught his attention.   
  
"Agent Doggett?"   
  
John looked up to see a small head peeked into the office. "Can I help you?"   
  
She smiled faintly and walked all the way in to offer him her hand. "Hi, I'm Kate."   
  
"Kate?" John asked as he shook her hand.   
  
"Your new partner?" she said and then jumped slightly in place. "Oh, they didn't tell you, did they?"   
  
John took a small breath as he looked at her from head to toes. "Yeah, they did."   
  
"Oh, good," she said, putting a hand to her heart and letting out an exaggerated sigh.   
  
John looked at her from head to toes. A rude move, he knew it, but he couldn't help it. There was some kind of ethnicity about her he couldn't identify: maybe Jewish or Italian. Small, buffed up, wearing a wedding ring. When he looked up at her he found her studying him in return. That made him uncomfortable, but more uneasy was the awkward silence between them.   
  
He looked at the ID pinned to her suit and read, "Di Cello?"   
  
She nodded. "Italian. Brooklyn."   
  
John nodded in return and it clicked. Italian, of course. Jet black hair and somewhat thick eyebrows she probably never plugged because in that part of the world, men liked thick eyebrows. Or whatever. She had short legs, short arms, but probably a hell of an attitude. He wondered if she knew just how tough it would be to work on the X-Files.   
  
Kate shifted on her feet uncomfortably and looked around. "Anyway, I just wanted to introduce myself."   
  
John just found himself nodding again.   
  
"I heard about your partner." That caught his attention and he narrowed his eyes at her. "I'm sorry for your loss."   
  
He looked away and walked around his desk, heading for the archives. "She's not dead."   
  
"Oh, I'm sorry," Kate apologized. "I just heard…"   
  
"Do you believe in aliens?" John asked, interrupting her.   
  
"What?" she asked as if caught by surprised, widening her eyes.   
  
"Do you know what we do down here?" John asked, putting the files in place.   
  
"Unexplained cases," Kate replied. "I'm not deaf, Agent Doggett. The X-Files have a strong reputation."   
  
There were a million other things John wanted to reply to that but didn't. All that anger pent up inside of him was threatening to lash out at her. Because she was taking Monica's place. Because she would be here every day as a reminder of this nightmare. Because she did apologize for Monica's kidnapping, but she most likely didn't give a fuck. Because she was here to do her job, which she probably didn't care about, and then she'd go home to her husband every night so that they could make love under the moon while they whispered little nothings to each other. Because even if she inherited Monica's desk, even temporarily, Kate would never know her just the way John did. Because it wasn't her pain, but John wanted her to feel it. He wanted her to suffer the way he was suffering right now.   
  
But he knew it wasn't her fault she had been assigned to the X-Files. It wasn't her fault she would be clearing away Monica's belongings and she wasn't the reason Monica was gone.   
  
So he pressed his lips into a thin line and nodded.   
  
"Look, if we are going to work together I think we should start on the right foot," she suddenly said.   
  
"I agree," John said.   
  
"I've never lost a partner…" she watched his reaction and changed her words. "Sorry. I don't really know how you feel right now. I've heard really nice things about Agent Reyes and even thought the prospect of working on The X-Files is intriguing, I'd give it all away if that meant she could come back."   
  
John nodded at her comforting words.   
  
"But in the meantime, I'd like it if you got to know me better before you lash your anger at me. After that, if you still don't like me, well, then just be my guest."   
  
He kind of smiled at that slightly, glad to have a moment of ease after a hell of a week. "M'sorry," he said.   
  
"No harm done," she replied. "Well, nice to meet you, Agent Doggett."   
  
"Same here," John said as he shook her hand.   
  
"I'll see you tomorrow, bright and early."   
  
"See 'ya," John said and watched her go.   
  
He let out a sigh and ran his hands through his hair. He couldn't really jump to any conclusions after this first meeting, but at least she wasn't down right unlikable. The last thing he needed was an antagonistic partner.   
  
He walked over to his desk and called the guys upstairs so they'd help him with the search on Bonsall. Three hours later, he had an entire biography. As he had suspected, Michael Bonsall wasn't his real name, Ted Schiller was. Born and raised in Virginia, parents dead, and one sister who lived in Maryland.   
  
"Bingo," John said out loud.   
  
"What's the prize?"   
  
John looked up to see Scully standing there with the first smile he had seen in a while.   
  
"Got Bonsall's profile," John said triumphantly.   
  
Scully nodded and waited as he made a couple of phone calls to Skinner and Kersh about Bonsall. Then he moved over to the fax machine to send Bonsall's picture and profile to some of the police stations around the area.   
  
Watching him do this, he looked almost excited about his findings, as if he had already solved the case.   
  
"I talked to Skinner, he told me you have a new partner," she finally said.   
  
"Yeah," John said absentmindedly.   
  
"Who is it?" Scully asked.   
  
"Kate. Kate Di something or other," John said. He hit a couple of buttons and the fax machine began to work. "Anyway, she seems nice."   
  
"She does?" Scully asked.   
  
He looked up at her. "Yeah, why?"   
  
Scully took a deep breath and leaned her body against Monica's desk. "Nothing, just... Be careful."   
  
"Why?" John asked.   
  
Scully just shook her head, feigning innocence.   
  
"You're tellin' me not to trust her?" he asked.   
  
"I'm telling you to sleep with one eye open," Scully replied.   
  
John thought of that for a moment. He heard stories of Mulder and Krycek and the way Krycek had been sent to derail Mulder. But that just seemed too much. So he shrugged his shoulders. "Nah."   
  
Scully crossed her arms in front of her and raised on eyebrow. "Maybe. But still, be careful"   
  
He nodded, wordlessly thanking her for the advice. The phone on Monica's desk rang and Scully waved a hand in the air to let him know she'd answer it.   
  
"Scully."   
  
John lowered his head and an eerie feeling washed over his body, going up and down his spine. Would they really send someone in to side track him? Why?   
  
"Are you sure?"   
  
He looked up at Scully. All color had gone off her face and she looked like she had just seen a ghost.   
  
"What?" he asked, rising up.   
  
Scully looked at him for a second and then forward. "Okay. Thank you." She hung up the phone, but couldn't seem to look at John in the eyes.   
  
"What is it?"   
  
She took another deep breath. "John." Her voice was cracking, so she cleared her throat. "They… they found her body."   
  
  
To be continued… 


End file.
